The Pit of Snakes
by Silver Sailor Ganymede
Summary: 100 drabbles/vignettes about Blaise Zabini.
1. Haunted

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

_**(A.N: For 'Kissing Sin's' 100 Prompts Challenge of HPFC)**_

The Pit of Snakes  
By Silver Sailor Ganymede

I. Haunted

"I can't believe we're actually living in a haunted castle!"

Blaise paused for a second, wondering whether he'd actually heard what he thought he had, then glanced over at the group of Hufflepuffs who were sitting at a table near him, confused. Why would they be so surprised that there were ghosts at Hogwarts? They weren't exactly uncommon.

"I don't know why you're so surprised, Justin," a boy who Blaise was pretty sure was a Macmillan replied with a laugh.

"Well I've never seen a ghost before," Justin explained. "My family's all muggle, remember? Dad didn't believe me when I told him there were ghosts here. He thought I was making it up."

"So he was willing to believe that you're a wizard but he still won't believe in ghosts?" Blaise said incredulously, causing the Hufflepuffs to jump and stare at him in horror.

"Wh… what do you want, Zabini?" Ernie asked, looking at Blaise as though he was a muggle and had just seen a ghost himself.

"Muggles are strange," Blaise replied, trying to sound as bored as possible. "Now can you shut up? I'm trying to work."

He wasn't about to admit that he had actually found their conversation interesting. After all, they were Hufflepuffs and he was a Slytherin; to have an interesting conversation with them would just be wrong.


	2. Clock

II. Clock

Blaise Zabini had come to the conclusion that he could not stand Valentine's Day. He had said that he'd meet Theodore in the Hog's Head for a drink that afternoon because it was one of their rare Hogsmeade weekends, but every time he turned around, more girls tried to mob him. He appreciated the sweets, of course, but the tacky cards and the cries of 'I love you' from girls he had never even seen before were more than a little tiring.

To make things even worse, it was snowing and his best robes were getting absolutely ruined. Well, okay, they weren't his best robes, but they had still been expensive and they were still getting ruined. He wondered, not for the first time, why Hogwarts had to be in the far north of Scotland. Why couldn't it have been somewhere warmer – like the south of France, for instance? How he wished at times like these that his mother had sent him to Beauxbatons instead.

He shoved open the door to the Hog's Head, swearing as a flurry of snow followed him in and went down the back of his cloak. This day just was not going to go the way he wanted to, was it? His heart sank even further when he saw that Theodore was obviously in an even worse mood than usual. Then again Blaise couldn't blame him; he was around half an hour late, not that it was actually his fault this time.

You're late," Theodore snapped as Blaise sat down, attempting to brush the snow out of his hair and off his robes. All he succeeded in doing was filling the butterbeer Theodore had bought him with half melted snow.

"I got caught up," Blaise replied, feeling just as annoyed as Theodore looked. "Stupid girls seem to think that just because it's Valentine's weekend that means they're obliged to follow me around."

Theodore snorted into his drink, obviously amused by the situation. Blaise personally could not see why. This wasn't funny, damn him!

"I can't wait for you to be of age."

"I wonder why?" Blaise said with a smirk.

"Because I'm going to buy you a watch," Theodore replied curtly; evidently he still had no sense of humour. Damn. "Maybe then you'll be on time for once."

Blaise took a swig of butterbeer, only to manage to spill it down the front of his robes because his hands were still shaking from the cold. Theodore tried not to laugh. Blaise groaned. If he had his way, next year Valentine's Day would be cancelled.


	3. Stare

III. Stare

Staring was probably Blaise's worst habit. He knew it but he couldn't really help it. People were just too interesting for him not to look at them, and why should he care if he got told off for looking?

The current object of his attention was one Draco Malfoy. The boy's sharp features and astonishing paleness had convinced Blaise that a long time ago, a Malfoy must have mated with a Veela. That was the only explanation Blaise could come up with; how else could Draco be so fair? No one had hair like that naturally, surely?

Draco glanced up from his dinner just in time to see Blaise looking intently at him.

"What are you staring at?" he snapped.

"You have chocolate round your mouth," Blaise replied with a grin as Draco flushed with embarrassment and muttered something about never wanting to eat chocolate cake again.

Staring was probably Blaise's worst habit, but he really didn't care. The excuses he had to come up with to get himself out of trouble when doing it where just too fun.


	4. Sliding

IV. Sliding

"This is not funny, Blaise!" Pansy shrieked, her face turning scarlet as she did so.

Blaise didn't even try not to laugh. It had been funny, and it was doubly funny now that Pansy was yelling at him for it. She was just too fun to wind up.

"Zabini!" she screamed. "Stop laughing at me."

Daphne, who had just arrived, stared at the two of them in complete confusion.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Pansy just slid all the way down the stairs," Blaise snickered in reply.

Pansy scowled daggers at him in response and Daphne just sighed.

"Come on," Daphne sighed. "We have to get to class."

As Daphne started to walk off, Pansy rounded on Blaise again, furious.

"I did not slide," she snarled. "You pushed me!"

"Me?" Blaise said in his most innocent voice. "I'd never do such a thing. Now come on before we're late."

The best thing was that Professor McGonagall had just come round the corner, so Pansy couldn't do a thing about it.


	5. Dark room

V. Dark room

Blaise hated not being able to sleep. He hated it even more because it didn't often happen, so whenever it did he felt ill and completely drained the next day, and just thinking about that sensation was enough to make him feel sick. Unfortunately for him, Crabbe and Goyle's snores were so loud that night that not even a silencing charm could have drowned them out.

He got out of bed, resigning himself to the fact that sleep just wasn't going to appear, and decided to go to the common room. At least there it would be quieter. He cast a jealous glare at Draco as he passed, wondering how the boy could possibly sleep through that infernal noise.

The common room was unusually dark when he got there. The fire had burned very low and the water that could be seen through the glass panels in the ceiling filled the room with an unearthly green glow. Blaise shivered, feeling more than a little uncomfortable, and wondered briefly whether he oughtn't return to the dormitory.

Then something moved in the shadows and Blaise barely managed to repress a shriek. Then, as he moved closer, he realised that it was only Theodore. Evidently the other boy hadn't been able to sleep either, which was unsurprising considering how light a sleeper he was.

"I'm assuming Crabbe and Goyle drove you out," Theodore drawled before turning his attention back to the book he'd been reading.

"How can you read in this light?" Blaise asked.

"It's not dark."

"And how come you're so awake at this hour?"

"It's not late."

Blaise decided that Theodore was very strange, but at least the common room felt less ominous now that he was here. Blaise lay his head on Theodore's shoulder, which was quite bony but comfortable enough, and decided that he was going to sleep whether the fates wanted him to or not.

"What are you doing?" Theodore sighed but made no move to get Blaise's head off his shoulder.

"Using you as a pillow," Blaise replied. "Good night, Theo."

"Good night."

He slept peacefully.


	6. Crying

VI. Crying

Blaise wasn't used to having to comfort crying girls. Making them cry was easy enough, but having to try and calm them down was an entirely different manner. Not, of course, that anything would have been able to calm Pansy down tonight.

She wasn't the only one to have been affected. Daphne was staring blankly off into space. Crabbe and Goyle looked more than a little terrified. Tracey Davis was clinging onto Millicent Bulstrode's arm and looked on the verge of tears. In fact only Theodore seemed totally impassive, but then again Theodore always did; anything else would have just been too much for Blaise to handle. He probably would have started crying himself if that had happened.

"He's going to kill him," Pansy shrieked. "The Dark Lord's going to kill Draco. He failed. How could he fail? He's going to die."

She had been sobbing things to the effect for the past hour and Blaise had so far done nothing to stop her.

"That's what you're so worried about?" Tracey Davis' voice made Blaise jump; the girl rarely spoke to anyone other than Theodore and Millicent, so for her to address them all was just strange. "The fact that Draco was stupid enough to get himself into a position where he'd have to kill someone."

"It's not his fault. He's just following ord…"

"You're just worried about the fate of a little boy who was too stupid to tell the difference between right and wrong," Tracey hissed in reply. "The rest of us had worse things to worry about, you know."

"Such as what?"

"Such as the fact that our entire world's just come to an end."

One look into Tracey's eyes was enough to convince Blaise that she was telling the truth. Nothing was ever going to be the same after that night, not now that Dumbledore was dead and there was no one in the world that the Dark Lord feared.


	7. Announcement

VII. Announcement

"I have an announcement to make!"

Blaise had no idea what Pansy's announcement would be, but in all honesty he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. He, Theodore and Daphne had stayed in the common room while the rest of their year had gone to Lockheart's stupid duelling club, and now Pansy had rushed back early with a wild look in her eyes. He didn't even want to know what had happened to make her like that; Lockheart had probably given out sweets to all the girls or something equally as stupid, knowing that man.

"What is it?" Daphne asked eventually, only managing to make herself sound slightly more interested than Blaise felt.

"Harry Potter's a parselmouth."

Theodore was looking at her incredulously, Daphne seemed disbelieving and Blaise was trying not to laugh.

"Don't be ridiculous," Theodore sneered.

"But he talked to a snake!"

Blaise snorted with laughter and Pansy glared at him.

"He did!"

"Sure he did, Pansy," Blaise replied with a grin. "Honestly, people will be saying he's the Heir of Slytherin next."


	8. Wink

VIII. Wink

Blaise was in a very good mood. He had been dreading the Yule Ball at first because annoying girls kept on hounding him to be their date, but he had followed Daphne's advice and dragged Theodore with him instead, which meant that he didn't have some brat pining for his constant attention and was free to do as he pleased.

Doing as he pleased had so far consisted of drinking large quantities of the punch, which some Gryffindor seventh years had spiked with a weird concoction of firewhisky and other alcoholic drinks that Blaise couldn't identify. Either way it was a good thing, as Theodore was sitting sulkily in a corner, still annoyed that he had let Blaise talk him into coming to the Ball at all, and Blaise would have been bored senseless otherwise. At least this way, being somewhat drunk, he could convince himself that he was having fun.

He caught sight of the Weasley girl walking past him, completely unsteady in her heels and clinging onto Longbottom's arm for balance – which probably wasn't a good idea because the boy was a clumsy oaf and was more likely to trip over his own feet than she was. She let out a quiet shriek when Longbottom tripped over thin air, nearly pulling her down with him.

Blaise couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't loud but it was enough to catch the Weasley girl's attention. She glared straight at him and he, feeling rather daring, winked at her. She blushed and turned away quickly, still glaring. Blaise felt rather annoyed; evidently his charms wouldn't work on everyone.

Damn it.

He needed more of that punch.


	9. Bridge

IX. Bridge

"Zabini, you do realise we have an Ancient Runes essay due in on Thursday, don't you?"

Blaise, who had been dragged up to the library against his will, just stared at Theodore sulkily. He wasn't going to do any work today, not if he could help it.

"So? It's not due in till Thursday. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it."

Theodore frowned at him.

"You mean 'I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.'"

"I always say exactly what I mean."

"Even when it's utterly wrong."

"I'm never wrong, Theo," Blaise replied. He sat there in silence for another minute then said, "Damn this. I'm going for a walk."

"You do realise that Thursday is tomorrow, don't you?"

Blaise stopped, groaned loudly enough to earn himself a disapproving glance from Madam Pince, then sat down again.

"I hate you sometimes, Theo, you know that?"


	10. Letter

X. Letter

Blaise had known what was coming as soon as the letter had arrived late that evening and he had seen his mother's elegant writing in scarlet ink on the envelope. She normally wrote in emerald ink because the colour was her favourite; she only wrote in scarlet to please Blaise because it was his favourite shade. Gryffindor colour or not, he had always been partial to red.

His heart sank when he saw it because she only wrote in red when she was going to tell him something important rather than just the trivial gossip she occasionally bothered him with. He tore the letter open to find that his suspicions were right; she was getting married again. Well, at least she'd had the courtesy to tell him. She could always have just let him find it out from the papers, which wouldn't have been anything new.

Blaise told himself that it wasn't important that his mother was getting married again. He was old enough now to be able to do without a father figure. Anyway, it was unlikely that he would ever even meet the man. By the time Blaise arrived home for the holidays, he would probably already be dead.

He scrunched up the letter and threw it in the fire. It wasn't important at all.


	11. Sorrow

XI. Sorrow

"How can you still be so happy?"

He hadn't meant to ask her that; the words had escaped him before he could stop himself.

Daphne raised an eyebrow. "Whatever do you mean, Blaise?"

"The Dark Lord is back," Blaise hissed out. "Both your parents are dead and neither you nor Astoria are Death Eaters. Yet here you are, acting just like you did before the war started. How can you do that? Do you just not feel anything?"

She shrugged. "There's nothing left to feel, Blaise. All I'm concentrating on is surviving – and you should be too."

It hurt because he knew she was right.


	12. Hit by an object

XII. Hit by an object

Blaise was going to kill Goyle.

He had been walking by the Forbidden Forest, minding his own business and not getting on anyone's nerves, when he suddenly felt as though a Bludger had hit him in the back. He had ended up sprawled on the ground, curing, then hearing Crabbe's dull laugh and seeing Goyle's gormless face had been enough to tell him that he actually _had _just been hit by a Bludger.

He was going to kill Goyle. Or maybe Crabbe, seeing as Crabbe was the only who was laughing and Goyle was probably too thick to realise that hitting Bludgers about nowhere near the Quidditch pitch might actually be dangerous.

"What in the name of Merlin's shiny silver beard do you two morons think you're doing?" he snarled, gritting his teeth as he got to his feet and wondering whether he oughtn't head to the hospital wing.

"Draco told us to practice," Crabbe said pompously. "So we were."

"What, by hitting me?" Blaise snapped. "Couldn't you at least have aimed for a Gryffindor or something?"

"Didn't mean to hit you," Goyle mumbled. "Was aiming for that tree."

"And I suppose you forgot, did you, that Bludgers are spelled to hit the nearest _person_, not the nearest _tree_?" Blaise sighed, realising that Goyle probably _had_ forgotten that. Not Crabbe though: Crabbe was grinning and had obviously wanted him to get hurt.

Forget killing Goyle, he was going to kill Crabbe – starting with a nasty Bat Bogey hex that had Crabbe speeding off on his broom in an attempt to get away from the vicious attacks of his own snot.

Goyle looked at Blaise, terrified, but Blaise decided not to hex him.

"Come on Greg, you great lump. We need to get up to the hospital wing to check you haven't caused me any severe damage."

He wondered briefly how long it would take Crabbe to escape his hex, but then decided he didn't care. Crabbe deserved everything he got.


	13. Waiting

XIII. Waiting

Blaise hates having to wait. He might have spent most of the last three years pretending he didn't care what he got in his OWLs, but in all honesty he's worried. Really worried. He hates waiting.

Then the owl flies through the window, dropping Blaise's Hogwarts letter on the table. And there they are, his results. He bites his lip and stares at the envelope, wondering whether he can force himself to open it. He doesn't really want to know but he hates waiting too much not to open it right away.

He looks at his results and starts to laugh. He's passed all his subjects with Es and Os – and he's somehow, amazingly, almost certainly due to Theodore and Tracey's help (except he's never telling them that), managed to scrape an A in Potions. He won't have to re-do the OWL!

Blaise grins to himself and heads to the kitchens to grab the biggest bar of chocolate he can find. A celebration is in order.


	14. Confused

XIV. Confused

"You can't do it like that, it's all wrong."

"Actually I think you'll find that you can."

"You'd have to change all of this part round though."

"No you wouldn't."

"But the book says that…"

"Do you really think that books are always right, Tracey? You're starting to sound like that mudblood Granger."

"Don't you dare use that word, Nott! And I'll have you know that the books are always right."

"Then how come I've already got the right answer?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't have the right answer if you've just…"

"Will somebody please tell me what is going on?" Blaise howled, looking at Theodore, then at Tracey, then back again. They had been arguing over a huge textbook and a load of scraps of parchment for the past twenty minutes, and he hadn't understood a word of it. "You're confusing me."

"Arithmancy homework," Theodore replied. "And I think you'll find," he said, brandishing a piece of parchment at Tracey, "that this proves I'm right. As always."

Tracey glared murderously at Theodore. Blaise took this as his cue to leave. He wasn't going to sit round with those two while they were arguing; he didn't particular fancy accidentally getting hexed and ending up in the hospital wing, thank you very much.


	15. Leave

XV. Leave

"You don't have to leave," Blaise whined, hoping that he could somehow convince Draco to stay. They had been having ever such an interesting conversation when Draco had announced that he had business to attend to.

"Yes," Draco snapped, "I do."

"Why? It's well past curfew. Where are you going?"

"Prefecting." Draco said this a little too quickly to sound genuine. Blaise raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yes," Draco snarled.

"You're going to the Hog's Head, aren't you?" Blaise said with a grin. Draco flushed. So that was why he was being so tetchy. Still, he couldn't have been sneaking out there all the time, could he? He had been disappearing a lot since their sixth year began.

"Yes," Draco replied sulkily. "Don't follow me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Blaise replied. "Theo'd kill me if I came back drunk again this week. So would my liver."

"Alright."

"Don't do anything I forgot I did!" he called after Draco as he was leaving.

Draco stared at him curiously. "How can you know you did something if you forgot you did it, Zabini?"

Blaise shrugged. "Bite marks."

Draco rolled his eyes and left. Blaise suddenly felt very bored.


	16. Duel

XVI. Duel

"What's this I've heard about you challenging Harry Potter to a duel?" Blaise asked.

Draco sneered at him in response.

"Why did you ask Crabbe to be your second? You know he's an idiot," Blaise said sulkily. "And Theo and I are both far better at duelling than Crabbe or Goyle. Not that Theo would have helped anyway, but that's beside the point. Why didn't you ask me?"

"Zabini," Draco said slowly, "You are an idiot. I challenged him to a 'duel' just to get him into trouble."

"Oh," said Blaise. "I see."

Draco looked at him carefully. "You seem more and more like a Gryffindor every time you open your mouth, Zabini."

And every time Draco opened his mouth for the next two hours, nothing came out; Blaise had put a silencing charm on him. Served him right for implying that Blaise wasn't Slytherin enough.


	17. Howling

XVII. Howling

"Professor Lupin's a werewolf?" Blaise yelped out.

Theodore shot him a scathing glare.

"Shut up, Zabini; someone might hear you."

"How did you figure that out?"

"Unlike you, I'm actually passing Astronomy."

"So he's really a werewolf?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"_Yes_, Zabini. Are you deaf as well as dumb?"

Blaise grinned in response then let out a long howl. It took all of Theodore's patience not to fire a hex at him.

"You never take anything I say seriously, do you?"

"Me?" Blaise said innocently. "Of course I do."

"You must be the worst liar ever to have ended up in Slytherin."


	18. Excited

XVIII. Excited

Blaise had never felt so excited in his life. He had known that his Hogwarts letter would be arriving soon, but his heart had still leapt into his mouth when the owl had dropped the letter onto the dining room table that morning.

He had been eating alone, his mother preferring not to breakfast at all if she could help it, so he had grabbed the letter and, as soon as he had torn it open and read through the contents three times, ran straight to his mother's rooms, where she was sitting reading a magazine.

"Mama, look, I have my Hogwarts letter! I got in!" he said, delighted.

"Oh," his mother said, not even bothering to feign interest. "That's nice, darling. Now leave Mama alone; Mama's trying to read."

Suddenly Blaise's excitement faded completely. He felt stupid for having been so happy over something that obviously didn't matter at all.


	19. First time

XIX. First time

Blaise could still remember the first time he'd kissed a girl. It'd been Daphne Greengrass and they had been four years old, and their mothers had laughed about how sweet they were. Then Daphne had declared loudly that she never wanted to kiss a boy again and their mothers had laughed even more.

The first time he'd _properly _kissed a girl had been when he was thirteen. That had been Daphne again, but this time she'd slapped him and called him a cad and asked him what he thought he was doing. Didn't he know how to treat a lady? He couldn't just go round kissing girls for dares: didn't he understand that much?

The first time he'd kissed someone he actually had feelings for… he didn't know. He couldn't think. It hadn't happened yet.


	20. Anger

XX. Anger

Blaise couldn't bring himself to stop laughing. He knew he was acting entirely inappropriately, but he really just could not help himself. This was just too funny.

"What's wrong with you, Zabini?" Draco snarled out. "We just lost the Quidditch match against Gryffindor because the school's so obviously biased. What's so amusing about that?"

Blaise continued to snigger.

Draco shook his head, sneering. "There's something wrong with you."

Blaise shrugged; it wasn't his fault Draco looked so much like a ferret when angry. Really, how could anyone bring themselves _not_ to laugh at an angry Draco Malfoy?


	21. Power

XXI. Power

"I hate you, but I can't stay away from you. What is this power you have over me?"

Theodore looked up at Blaise slowly.

"Zabini," he said, "You do realise that you're talking to a bar of chocolate, don't you?"

"Yes," Blaise replied. "But it's true. I shouldn't be eating it because it's making me fat, but then I just go and eat even more of it."

Theodore sighed. "You're starting to sound like Parkinson."

Blaise spluttered indignantly. "I am n… ok, alright. Maybe I am. Damn it!"


	22. Forbidden

XXII. Forbidden

"Why is it called the Forbidden Forest?" Blaise asked one day as they were walking back from Herbology.

Theodore stared at him blankly.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" Blaise whined.

"I was just wondering if you'd really asked that question," Theodore replied. "It's forbidden because it's full of dangerous enchantments and creatures that would probably kill you if you went in there. Isn't that much obvious?"

"Why use the word 'forbidden' though?" Blaise questioned. "It's not exactly a deterrent. In fact all it does is make you want to go and investigate."

"Remind me again how you managed to get sorted into Slytherin rather than Gryffindor," Theodore sighed. "I really do wonder sometimes whether that Sorting Hat didn't make a mistake."

Blaise pouted. "You're mean, Theo."


	23. Lust

XXIII. Lust

Blaise Zabini didn't believe in fairytales. Fairytales always had a handsome prince falling in love with a beautiful princess and then them living happily ever after. Fairytales were stupid. Fairytales were just plain wrong.

Real life didn't happen like that. His mother was more beautiful than any princess in any fairytale that Blaise had ever heard, but men never fell in love with her. They just lusted after her beauty and her wealth. His mother was more like the dragon than the princess, actually – beautiful but deadly, burning her lovers' bodies to death from the inside out with fire in their veins and ice in their hearts. Poison.

Blaise Zabini didn't believe in fairytales, but whenever he saw another man's corpse being dragged from the manor and his mother howling crocodile tears (dragon's tears, diamonds, sparkling with the riches she had won rather than for sadness over something she had lost), he truly wished that he could.


	24. Notes

XXIV. Notes

"Davis, can I borrow your Transfiguration notes?"

Tracey glared at Blaise in response. "Why should I lend them to you?"

"We're friends, aren't we?"

"No," she replied curtly. "You only ever speak to me when you need to copy someone's work and Theodore's refusing to help you. That does not constitute friendship."

Blaise pouted. "But…"

"No," Tracey snapped, having lost her patience entirely by now. "Why don't you just ask one of the Ravenclaws? Half of them seem to be in love with you, though frankly I can't begin to fathom why. Surely you could get one of them to do your work for you."

Blaise looked suddenly delighted. He was on the verge of hugging Tracey but then thought better of it.

"Why didn't I think of that?" he cried before hurrying off to find Lisa Turpin, who was so besotted with him that she'd do anything he asked. Blaise grinned to himself; suddenly he understood exactly why Theodore was friends with Tracey Davis.


	25. Chase

XXV. Chase

Blaise has always loved flying. When he flies, he feels as though there's nothing binding him to the world any longer. He can just speed through the skies, the wind tangling his hair into knots that won't come out unless he uses a spell on them, and forget about all the drama happening on the Earth below. It doesn't matter anymore.

He has never liked Quidditch but he has always liked Snitches, probably for the aesthetics of the things more than anything else. They are shining and beautiful, glimmering in even the faintest rays of sunlight like miniature, winged Galleons. He can chase one across the sky for hours on end, focusing on the glittering gold and clearing his mind of everything else. The drama down on Earth can't hurt him anymore.

Sometimes, when he catches sight of the Snitch out of the corner of his eye, Blaise thinks he can see the bird they were modelled after, a little Snidget that will be crushed to death in his hand as soon as he catches it. That's why he prefers the cold metal of the Snitch to the living, breathing body of a Snidget. He flies to escape death, not to cause it.


	26. Leaving

XXVI. Leaving

"I've spent years waiting for you and now you want to leave me. I won't let you go without a fight!"

Well that was certainly unexpected. Despite her flaming red hair, Susan Bones had never been one to display a particularly fiery temperament – and yet here she was, screaming at him that she wasn't going to let him break up with her. Wonderful. He should have known that Hufflepuffs would be persistent, shouldn't he?

"You won't win a duel against me, you know."

Susan's cheeks flushed scarlet. He was used to seeing her go that colour, but never before because of anger.

"I have been in love with you since our first year, Blaise Zabini, and now you think you can just get rid of me for no reason? You are a heartless bastard. You're just like your mother, using people for your own benefit with no regard for what you've done to them."

Blaise shrugged. "I'm a Slytherin, my dear. That's what we do."

"And to think I was in love with you," she whispered then laughed bitterly.

She turned her back on him and walked away.

For a moment, just a fleeting second, Blaise felt that he had actually lost something.


	27. Go away

XXVII. Go away

"Just stay away from me! Never come near me again!"

Lisa Turpin was shaking with anger, tears already welling up in her big, brown eyes. She had beautiful eyes, Blaise thought. Beautiful everything, and she was even more beautiful when angry… she was just a complete and utter pain in the neck.

"It's not my fault I'm not in love with you," Blaise drawled out. "And obviously you don't love me either, seeing as you've been fucking Anthony Goldstein senseless for the past three months. I should have guessed that you were just a common little slut. Mudbloods like you always are."

He wasn't expecting her to slap him like a common muggle. It was awfully distasteful, but he supposed it was fitting. Blaise felt his lip curl in disgust as she ran off down the corridor in tears. Such irrational behaviour didn't make any sense; she had been the one to leave him and tear his pride to shreds, not that he was going to ever let her see that.

He was never going to date a mudblood again. Never. Lisa Turpin was the worst thing ever to have happened to him.


	28. Tired

XXVIII. Tired

He had known it would happen eventually. It had to, really, didn't it? That's why he hadn't been entirely surprised when Parvati had dragged him into an empty classroom, slamming the door behind her and turning to face him, fury burning in her eyes.

"I'm tired of this, Blaise," she said.

"Of what?"

"I'm tired of fighting, of talking, of thinking. I'm tired of everything!" she shrieked, months of badly pent-up annoyance finally bursting out of her, just like he'd always known it would eventually.

"Are you tired of me?" he said at last.

"You're the reason why. It's you that I can't stop thinking and talking about. It's my love for you that I can't stop fighting. It's you, it's always you and it always will be you," Parvati spat out in a hurry. "And you know what? The fact that I'm in love with you is the problem." Blaise opened his mouth to contradict her but she hushed him quickly. "No, Blaise, don't you dare deny it. Don't you dare. I don't know how many other people you've been seeing, in fact I don't _want_ to know, but I know for certain that you're not in love with me."

"But…" he protested, but she wasn't having any of it.

"I'm tired of it, Blaise. Now just leave me alone to get on with my life."

She left.


	29. Acceptance

XXIX. Acceptance

He had only done it to help Theodore. If Professor Slughorn hadn't happened to mention Theodore's name to Blaise during the course of their conversation, he would have run away as quickly as politeness allowed for rather than engaging in an actual conversation with the man.

He had only done it to help Theodore. He knew that if Theodore had been forced to attend Slughorn's dinner parties, he would almost certainly have ended up in Azkaban on multiple murder charges. Theodore had never had much time for politicking despite being in Slytherin. That was why Blaise had conveniently let it slip that Theodore's father was a convicted Death Eater, getting Theodore uninvited and saving a number of people from his friend's boredom-induced anger.

When Slughorn had asked Blaise to come in Theodore's place, he had taken all of three seconds to mull it over.

"Of course, Professor. I'd be delighted."

He had only done it to help Theodore, really… or perhaps not. Even Blaise wasn't that good at lying to himself.


	30. Mistake

XXX. Mistake

Blaise was terrified. He was trying not to show it but it just wasn't working – he was no Gryffindor. He fiddled with the edges of his robes and ran his fingers through his hair and generally managed to make himself look even more of a state on the outside than he felt on the inside.

"Stop worrying, Blaise," Theodore snapped at him.

Blaise glared at him. Trust Theo to have no sympathy whatsoever. He wouldn't though, would he? Theo was going to be fine, was going to get a straight set of Os in his exams and go on to get a wonderful job at the Ministry. And Blaise… wasn't.

"Blaise," Theodore said, his voice getting terser by the minute, "Stop fidgeting like some Ravenclaw. It's only a Potions OWL. It's not going to kill you."

"I can't afford to fail though!" Blaise almost shouted. Lisa Turpin looked at him rather too smugly for his liking. Blaise snarled at her in reply. Stupid girl, couldn't she just not look at him? Why did he have to be in the library when he was trying to finally, actually do some work? Moreover, why did he have to be in the same examination group of her? He already knew she was and it was getting on his nerves. Stupid surnames. Stupid alphabet. Why couldn't she just bugger off and leave him be? He had done everything he could to avoid her recently, but apparently the fates despised him. Stupid bloody small bloody wizarding bloody world…

"You insult me, Zabini," Theodore drawled. "Tracey and I have been helping you all year."

Lisa looked even smugger upon hearing this. Blaise wished that she'd go away and Theodore would shut up.

"Yes, Zabini," Lisa drawled. "Don't make too many mistakes now."

"I could never make a bigger mistake in my life than _you_, Turpin," he snarled. Normally he would have felt guilt about snapping at someone like that, but Lisa deserved it. If anyone deserved to be on the receiving end of his nerves and his anger right now then it was _her_.

Theodore let out a sound that was almost a laugh.

"You'll pass Blaise," he said. "And if you don't then Tracey will kill you long before you get rejected from any jobs at the Ministry."

"Thanks, Theo. That's really encouraging."

Strangely, when combined with the look of undisguised hurt he glimpsed on Lisa Turpin's face, it was.


	31. Prank

XXXI. Prank

He hadn't actually meant for Daphne to end up with ginger hair. He had meant for Pansy to end up with bright red hair, but evidently the potions reacted a little differently with blonde hair like Daphne's than black hair like Pansy's.

That was also why he was cowering in front of a very annoyed Daphne Quirita Greengrass rather than howling with laughter in the face of one Pansy Aglaea Parkinson.

"You," Daphne growled, "Made me look like a Weasley!"

Her voice grew progressively shriller with every word, causing Blaise to flinch. It took every ounce of courage he had not to go and hide behind the nearest sofa.

"I'm sorry, Queenie! I didn't mean to!"

That was the point at which Daphne made Blaise wonder whether she wasn't a descendent of the Furies. Then again accidentally pranking her and then calling her by that most-despised of childhood nicknames probably wasn't the best thing he could have done.

When Blaise woke up in the hospital wing later on that day with a bored Theodore and a sniggering Tracey on either side of him, he vowed that never again was he going to prank anybody. He wasn't going to risk doing anything that might land him on the wrong side of Daphne ever again in his life.


	32. Admission

XXXII. Admission

Theodore entered Blaise's room that evening to be met with the cold, stony silence and the sickly stench of whisky. Not firewhisky this time – muggle whisky, which was dull and brown and comparatively bitter. It also smelt, in Theodore's opinion, utterly revolting, but he tried no to think about that when he caught sight of a half empty bottle of the stuff on the windowsill and saw Blaise sitting on the floor by the fireplace with his knees tucked up to his chest, a glass of the stuff resting by his feet.

Blaise was still awake and conscious, so Theodore shouldn't have felt worried, but the fact was that Blaise had obviously had a lot to drink. Blaise drinking and not making ridiculous amounts of noise was just disturbing. Blaise drinking too much firewhisky and getting them chucked out of the Three Broomsticks; Blaise drinking elf made wine over Yule with Theodore's father and the pair of them acting like drunken fools; Blaise drinking absinthe and then spitting it out because he had decided for some reason that drinking it neat would be a good idea – all those things Theodore could handle, but a silent Blaise he couldn't. It was wrong, completely wrong.

"What's wrong with you?" Theodore asked, sitting himself down on the rug next to Blaise, who had at least the sense to move his glass away before it accidentally got knocked over.

"'s nothing," Blaise mumbled into the fire.

"Don't lie to me, Zabini. I know something's wrong with you. You're as transparent as a Gryffindor."

Blaise had picked up his glass and was moving it so the remnants of the ice swirled round. The ice had almost fully melted now, watering down the amber liquid even further. With the glow of the fire behind it, Theodore could almost convince himself that it was normal firewhisky. Almost.

"You've been in a hideous mood ever since dinner," Theodore snapped. "Would you care to enlighten me as to why?"

Blaise shrugged.

"Is it your mother again?" Theodore sighed. "You should have realised by now that paying attention to anything she says isn't going to do you the slightest bit of good."

"Shut it, Theo," Blaise growled. "Or I will hex you so badly you'll end up somewhere past Jupiter."

Theodore raised an eyebrow. "Oh will you?" he said coldly.

That was evidently enough to bring Blaise's senses back enough that he could calm down somewhat.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"And so you should be," Theodore muttered.

"No, really… I am," Blaise said again. He was staring intently into his glass as though the drink could provide him with the answers he was looking for. "I'm so sorry."

"Now you're just going over the top," Theodore replied, strongly reminded of why he didn't drink himself. Alcohol turned everyone into idiots – though admittedly in Blaise's case this wasn't too far from the truth anyway.

"You don't understand," Blaise groaned. "I'm sorry because I'm turning into my mother. I heard myself speaking earlier and I just sounded like her. All that rubbish about wealth and society and… I'm turning into her."

"You really are being an idiot now, Zabini. I know you've never cared for society's games." That's why we get on so well, he thought, but of course he wasn't going to say that aloud.

"But I'm doing it anyway. I'm turning into her. I don't _want _to turn out like her!" The glass in his hand smashed, shards of glass and half-melted bits of ice scattered everywhere, the two completely indistinguishable from one another.

Theodore waved it away with a flick of his wand.

"I don't want to become my mother," Blaise hissed. "I won't be like her. I don't _want _to hurt people but I know I end up doing it anyway. I'm _sorry_."

"I know," Theodore said, walking over to Blaise and placing a hand on his shoulder. It was the closest thing to comfort he knew how to give.


	33. Bad habit

XXXIII. Bad Habit

"That's a really horrible habit, you know."

Millicent glared at Blaise.

"Why are you even bothering me, Zabini?"

"Because you're biting your nails," Blaise replied, his exasperated tone suggesting that that should explain everything.

"What's it to you?"

"It looks horrible," Blaise whined. "How can you even… ergh."

"You're worse than Pansy," Millicent muttered. "Can you sod off now you're done whining?"

She bit her left thumbnail again for good measure. Blaise flinched than went, leaving Millicent alone again.

Good riddance.


	34. Prize

XXXIV. Prize

Daphne had finally managed to corner Blaise by the greenhouses just after dinner that evening. He had been avoiding her for the past three days, but now she finally had him in her grasp.

That was the problem, actually. He had been avoiding her completely after having been clinging onto her every word and showering her with pretty trinkets at every opportunity. He had finally been giving her some attention, then she had just happened upon him with Lisa Turpin of all people and the image had fallen apart.

"What's the problem?"

"You know what the problem is," she snapped back. "Lisa Turpin."

"What about her?"

"Blaise, you do not go round telling me that I'm wonderful and beautiful and that you love me, only to start ignoring me completely when I find you with someone else!" she shrieked. Part of her mind was saying that she was a pureblood young lady and such anger was undignified, but dignity be damned.

"You know Lisa doesn't mean anything to me," Blaise said sulkily. "You're wonderful, Daphne. You _are _beautiful and you _are_ wonderful and I _do _love you. You're the best friend anyone could ever ask for."

The best friend anyone could ever ask for. The words stung and Daphne was quite convinced that he had said it on purpose, that he was being typically Slytherin and trying to play with her heart in the way that would wound her most deeply. Well, Daphne was a Slytherin too and she wasn't going to stand for it.

"Blaise Zabini," she screamed at him. "When are you going to get it into your head that life isn't a game and that I am not a prize to be won?" She let her anger at the situation show; dignity and pureblood demureness be damned.

He stared at her blankly and she knew in her heart that he hadn't been acting like an idiot to hurt her. He really was that oblivious. For some reason that hurt her even more than it would have had he just been playing a stupid little game.


	35. Hurt

XXXV. Hurt

Why would he just not get the message and stop following her around? Tracey was in a very, very bad mood with Blaise, yet nothing she did seemed to be enough to tell him that she wanted him to leave her alone.

"Tracey, will you just lis…"

"I will hurt you if you ever talk to me again," she interrupted, speaking as slowly as she could in the hopes of finally getting the message across.

"I didn't _mean_ to destroy your History of Magic notes," Blaise whined. "The spell I was practicing just sort of went wrong…"

Tracey opened her mouth to snap at him again, but then she caught sight of the look that Theodore was giving her.

"What?"

"History of Magic notes?" Theodore said. "_That's_ what you're so annoyed at Blaise about? I thought he'd finally done something serious."

Blaise flushed and opened his mouth to protest, but then he seemed to realise that to do so wouldn't be a very good idea.

Tracey suddenly felt a little stupid. Maybe she had been overreacting…

"Will you be my friend again if I give you some of my chocolate?" Blaise whined. He looked so childish that Tracey couldn't help but laugh. And then there was what he'd said – 'will you be my friend again?' It was stupid but no one in Slytherin had ever said that to her, not even Theodore; but then again she supposed that he'd never actually said that to anyone.

"Fine," Tracey said, trying not to show just how much that one sentence had affected her. "But you're going up the library with me tomorrow and we're going to do that work." She paused for a moment. "And I want that chocolate as well." 


	36. Pain

XXXVI. Pain

Blaise Zabini was seven years old when he first really felt pain. He had been climbing a tree and had fallen out and broken his arm. His mother had hurried away from the guests she had been entertaining when she saw him screaming, then she had carried him into the house.

His mother had sat him in the drawing room and fixed his arm with a quick spell. She had always been good with healing spells, which was lucky because had had broken bones a number of times before, including breaking the same arm only two months before by falling off a broomstick when trying to practice flying. Broken bones hurt, but he was almost used to them now.

"Better?"

Blaise nodded silently.

"Good. Now behave," she said coldly, "And please be a good boy and stay in here. I have guests to entertain and I could do without you causing another scene."

She had left without saying another word and he had started to cry again.

Blaise Zabini was seven years old when he first really felt pain, because that was when he realised that his mother didn't really love him at all.


	37. No choice

XXXVII. No choice

Blaise didn't really know when he had first noticed that Theodore was pretty. Handsome didn't seen a fitting word; his features weren't strong enough and he was too tall and too thin.

He wasn't handsome but he wasn't beautiful either. Men were almost never beautiful, with the possible exception of Terry Boot, but Terry had too-blonde, too-long hair and blushed too easily (like Draco only with enough blood in him to actually show any colour when embarrassed). Terry also spoke softly and fiddled with his glasses when he was nervous and reminded Blaise a little of Susan Bones. Terry he could get away with because he could almost convince himself that he was a girl, but not Theodore.

Yes, Theodore was pretty. It was the only word that fit. It was his eyes, Blaise decided – eyes the colour of a sunless sky. Most people would claim they were the colour of the sky during a storm, but storms were grey and icy and cold like Draco's eyes, not deep and mysterious, touched with the vaguest tint of almost-purple like Theodore's. He had the prettiest, most wonderful eyes that Blaise had ever seen, and sometimes he would just stare at them endlessly when he thought Theodore wouldn't notice.

Sometimes, however, he did see Blaise looking and cast him a bored glare in response.

"What are you gazing at now, Zabini?" Theodore snapped.

Blaise turned away quickly before his friend noticed him blushing. Yes, Theodore was pretty, but Blaise was never going to tell him that. He didn't exactly have a choice in the matter.


	38. Love

XXXVIII. Love

True love didn't exist. He had seen lust and debauchery and the most turgid affairs imaginable, but love? It was a concept he couldn't get his head around. True love was people sacrificing themselves, pouring their hearts out to one another, disappearing into a haze of emotion that he couldn't begin to understand. Things like that didn't happen in real life.

Except then it did. Parvati had screamed at him, telling him not to be an idiot, that soon the war would pass and everything would be right in the world.

"I will fight for you," she had said. "I will die for you. I will sacrifice everything I have for you. What else can I give but my entire being?"

The problem was that Blaise didn't want that. Even though they were in the middle of the war, she wasn't the only one he had to turn to. He had Terry. He had Lisa. He even had Theodore, though his friend certainly wouldn't have seen things in that way. Blaise didn't want all of Parvati, didn't want to be stuck with her forever once the war was over.

She had left him a few months later, professing that she was still in love with him, just tired of all the fighting, all the fear. He knew that he was still in love with her and he hated it. In the world Blaise knew, sacrificing yourself for another was simple stupidity. That was why, he decided, all those hideous notions of 'true love' had to be a Gyrffindor concept.

He told her straight out that he didn't want that, didn't want love, didn't want _her_. He couldn't even bring himself to cry when she was killed in the final battle mere months later; he was only glad to have escaped from the girl's obsession, which she had convinced herself was love. He wasn't going to make himself cry when he hadn't even lost anything.


	39. Proposal

XXXIX. Proposal

The war was over. For most families it had been a cause of great celebration, but Blaise didn't feel that an awful amount had changed. His mother had remained carefully neutral throughout recent events, supporting the Dark Lord just enough to escape persecution under him but little enough to escape persecution under the new order. She was the perfect example of a Slytherin, really: he had learnt well.

Others, however, had been immensely relieved when the war had finished and had wanted to celebrate in some way. That was why he was sitting in Daphne Greengrass' parlour, drinking copious amounts of wine. Daphne had been one of those whose life had been changed by the war; with both parents dead she had become the heir to their estate, but she was taking it all remarkably calmly. Probably because she had hardly known more about her parents than what their names were and which families they were linked to; as much, he mused, as he knew about his own mother, really.

Daphne was already substantially drunk by this point. She was lounging rather ungracefully on her sofa, one high-heeled foot dangling over the arm of the chair, one still of the floor, her head propped up on a ridiculous number of cushions. A half-full glass of white wine was dangling loosely in her left hand, threatening to drop to the floor and stain the carpet at any second.

"I love you, Blaise," she drawled out suddenly, pushing herself into an upright position and looking him in the eye.

Blaise frowned. "What are you saying, Daphne?" She was, after all, one of his closest friends; she wasn't supposed to say that to him, drunk or not. He hoped she was joking at least.

"You know what I mean," she muttered sulkily, the fiery blush in her cheeks making him wonder if perhaps she wasn't joking.

"No, I really don't."

"I mean that I want you to hold me, I want you to love me, I want you to be there every single time that I need you and even during the times when I don't. I want you to marry me!"

The words left her mouth in a rush. Blaise had been expecting her to say that she was joking or to just drunkenly kiss him at worst, because that at least he could have coped with. That at least would probably have been fun… but this. No, not this; this certainly was not it. He opened his mouth to say something but found that he couldn't speak. He looked away from Daphne, who was staring at him expectantly, then got to his feet.

"I… I have to go. I'm sorry."

He rushed out of the room, but not before he heard her beginning to sob.


	40. Running away

XL. Running away

"I'm finishing this, Zabini. I'm not going to do it any more."

Zacharias is staring at him furiously, speaking in angry but hushed tones so no one comes across them.

"Suit yourself, Smith," Blaise says with a shrug.

"I don't even like men," Zacharias snaps, more to himself than to Blaise. "I don't know why I got involved with you. It's stupid and it's wrong and I'm not going to continue it."

"Like I said, suit yourself," Blaise replies with a yawn, bored of the whole situation already. "You'll be back eventually."

Zacharias sneers at him. "What do you mean by that?"

"You can run away from me all you want," Blaise drawls in reply. "But you can't run away from yourself. You'll either end up in my arms or another man's at some point in your life, you know."

"Don't pretend you know me."

"I'm not. I just know human nature," Blaise says. "Run all you want. It'll find you again eventually."

"Not everyone's… like you, Zabini."

"That's a pity," Blaise sighs, looking genuinely upset on Zacharias' behalf. "If you were more like me then you'd actually be at peace with yourself."


	41. Dreaming

XLI. Dreaming

"I want to drop out of Hogwarts and become an actor."

Theodore sighed. Blaise was in one of those moods again. He couldn't stand it when he got like this.

"Don't be ridiculous, Zabini."

"I'm not _being _ridiculous," Blaise whined. "I want to become an actor, not a Mediwizard or an Auror or anything boring like that."

"You don't have a chance of doing anything 'boring like that'," Theodore snapped. "You're on track to fail most of your NEWTs. In fact, I have no idea how you managed to pass enough OWLs to get here in the first place."

"I'm not stupid," Blaise said sulkily. "School's just boring. And anyway, I really want to be an actor. I'm going to go to muggle London and study in a drama academy there."

"With muggles?" Theodore looked disgusted.

"Yes."

Theodore shook his head. "That's a very peculiar dream, you know."

"I know. I want to do it though."

"Well you can continue your odd daydreams later later. We have an Ancient Runes essay to finish first."

"I'm not going to need an NEWT in Ancient Runes to be an actor."

"Keep dreaming, Zabini. Just keep dreaming."


	42. Devastation

XLII. Devastation

Daphne doesn't usually drink sherry. It's always reminded her faintly of medicine – medicine masquerading behind an image that makes it look deceptively like one of her favourite wines. The fact that it's medicinal is exactly why she's drinking it now though; she doesn't want to think about anything that she has just seen.

The end of the war came in the early hours of this morning. At first they had fled to Hogsmeade, sent out of the castle by Pansy's cowardice and willingness to get them all branded as traitors. Normally she would have thought Pansy's actions appropriate, simple self-preservation, but know she knows that all of their reputations lie in ruins because of it.

She didn't turn her away though. She couldn't. So it's her and Pansy and Blaise and Millicent, a rather unlikely group if ever there was one, huddled together in the drawing room of her parents' house – no, it's her house now. It's been hers for months; she just hadn't had the time to consider that before. Not that it feels unusual to her, having to run the place like this. Her parents were far too caught up in their own, miserable lives to give a damn about the place that should have been their home and the girls that should have been their daughters.

Astoria isn't taking this as well as Daphne is, she knows that for a fact. Her sister had closeted herself away in one of the old maids' rooms rather than joining the miserable party downstairs. There were plenty of servants' rooms in the house. Her father had insisted on keeping human servants instead of animal ones, and it had taken her until she was fourteen to realise exactly why – the old cad knew that the easiest way to have affairs was to do so right under his wife's nose. Her mother, luckily, was at least a little more discreet than that. It doesn't matter now anyway; they're both dead.

The sherry tastes more like medicine the more she drinks of it.

"Here's to the end of the war and the end of the world," Blaise says, toasting the air with a glass of wine then putting it on the table next to him, untouched. Blaise is reacting almost as badly as Astoria. Daphne can tell this because he is so unlike his usual self – sick with worry, he is. Sick with terror over Theodore, who had disappeared at the height of the battle. No one has heard from him since. He might be dead for all they know, him and Crabbe and Goyle and Malfoy. No one has heard from them since the battle began.

In fact, she muses, Tracey Davis could be dead as well. She could have been dead for a year and none of them would have known about it. She had gone to hide in the muggle world, far away from the war. Daphne almost envies her for it; Davis had a world to escape back to. Daphne doesn't; all she has is a world that has succumbed entirely to devastation.

"It's not so bad," Millicent mutters. "We're still alive, aren't we?"

"It's alright for you, Bulstrode," Pansy says sulkily. "You're a half blood. They won't condemn _you_."

And Millicent says nothing because she knows that for once Pansy is right. Of all of them there, Millicent is the only one who has any real chance in this new world. Daphne and Blaise and Pansy are all chained by their blood status – scions of old pureblood families, damned despite the fact that none of their parents truly supported the old order. Daphne's parents were both killed by Death Eaters, and Blaise's mother and Pansy's father only showed just enough support to keep themselves out of trouble; none of them were Death Eaters, none of them, but the winners of the war will never accept that. They are the outcasts now, the mudbloods to this new order. It's more than a little ironic and Daphne cannot help but laugh.

She takes another sip of her drink and tries not to consider what has just come to pass. The world is rejoicing its new dawn, but Daphne and the others cannot help but mourn the world that's passed away and is threatening to take them with it. It's the only world they've ever known.

The sherry tastes of medicine, but Daphne doesn't care. She intends to be unconscious by the time the sun has fully risen; she doesn't want to have to gaze upon the dawning of this new, alien world and the ruins of everything she has ever understood to be true.


	43. Barefoot

XLIII. Barefoot

Blaise had sand between his toes again. In fact he was covered in sand from head to foot and his mother was probably going to shout at him when he got back, but he really didn't care. It was summer, he was in France, and he would be damned if he was going to go wandering around on the beach with anything on his feet; it was too warm for sandals.

The beach was full of people – mostly muggles, of course. That was another reason why his mother was going to shout at him when he came home, the fact that he had been mixing with muggles again. Oh well. He didn't care. He could just wish the sand away and she'd never know he'd been anywhere near the beach; wishing something away didn't strictly count as breaking the laws against underage magic, did it?

"I don't see why we had to go to the beach. I wanted to go to a museum."

"Hermione, darling, we've been to five museums in the past three days," a man's voice sighed in response. "Can't you at least pretend to enjoy one day of relaxing on the beach?"

The voices caught Blaise's attention because they were so obviously English, and also because 'Hermione' wasn't the most common of names. If he remembered correctly, there was a girl in his year called Hermione Granger – she was a Gryffindor and had had the highest marks in their year for the past two years, much to Theodore's annoyance. Blaise remembered Theodore ranting about Hermione, but he had never spoken a word to her.

No, he had never spoken to her, but he knew for a fact that it was her, standing over there with her muggle parents and sulking because she was being made to sit outside and do nothing. It had to be her; he'd never seen anyone else with such curly, bushy hair. It reminded him of a lion's main and was a strangely fitting characteristic for a Gryffindor.

Hermione glanced over in Blaise's direction so he smiled at her and waved.

She smiled and waved back at him, evidently not knowing who he was.

It was a pity, Blaise thought, that Hogwarts had houses. Hermione Granger probably would have been interesting conversation for him, the only other magical being amongst all these hoards of muggles, but he knew that as soon as he tried to speak, she'd probably ignore him on principle. He was a Slytherin after all. It was best if he just left well alone. They'd never spoken before, so what was the point in changing that now?

He turned his attention back to how he was going to get the sand off his feet before he got home. He didn't want to get into any more trouble with his mother.


	44. Cold

XLIV. Cold

"I'm dying, Daphne. I'm dying!"

Daphne glared at Blaise, who was lying in bed and had refused to get up all day, wondering why he insisted on being so melodramatic about everything.

"You're not dying," she snapped. "You have a cold."

"But I feel like I'm dying," he howled pitifully.

Daphne resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. "If you're feeling so bad then why don't you come up to the hospital wing?" she asked. "Madame Pomfrey will give you some pepperup potion and you'll be fine in no time at all."

"Don't want to," Blaise said, sounding far more petulant than Daphne would ever have expected from someone who was apparently dying. "Medicine's bad for you."

Daphne suddenly understood why Theodore was refusing to waste any more time trying to convince Blaise to take some pepperup potion.

"You're just like a five year old," Daphne snapped. "Come to the hospital wing _now_ and you won't feel ill any more."

Blaise grinned for the first time since she'd entered the room. "Will you kiss me if I do?"

On second thought, Blaise could lie in bed and suffer.


	45. Rain

XLV. Rain

"Oh look, Theo. It's raining again."

Theodore glared at Blaise in exasperation. "You're talking to me about the weather?"

"Yes," Blaise replied, still not diverting his attention from the raindrops.

"Are you just the personification of cliché, Zabini?"

"No," Blaise said. He was still gazing out of the window, his Ancient Runes work lying untouched on the table in front of him.

"The next time we have work to do, I'm keeping you down in the common room where you won't get distracted by the rain," Theodore said tersely.

Blaise wasn't paying a single bit of attention, instead tracing the paths the raindrops took as they slid down the glass in the windows. He laughed.

Theodore sighed.


	46. Moonlight

XLVI. Moonlight

Blaise swore as he managed to walk straight into a half-open door where a door had never existed before, then cursed himself for ever having had the stupid idea of going for a walk around the castle at night. All he had intended to do was raid Slughorn's drinks cabinet and steal a bottle of firewhisky, but now he had managed to get himself utterly lost. He was still in the dungeons, yes, but where?

Then Blaise caught a glimmer of what he thought was moonlight out of the corner of his eye. He wondered how he had managed to get out of the dungeons without realising it – after all, there was no way he could see the moon when underground. Hogwarts castle may have been enchanted, but even it wasn't capable of doing that… was it?

Blaise nearly screamed when he realised that the moonlight wasn't moonlight at all. It was the dim, ethereal glow of a ghost – and of all the ghosts in the castle, he had to have run across the Bloody Baron, didn't he? Well he was in the depths of the dungeons, and it could have been worse; he could have had the misfortune of running into Moaning Myrtle.

Blaise found himself staring at the ghost, who was covered in shimmering, silver blood. It was unnatural, unreal. The Baron's stare was blank, dark and demonic, and for a moment Blaise understood why muggles who saw ghosts were absolutely terrified of them.

The Bloody Baron glared at him with a gaze that might have been able to make the Dark Lord flee in terror, but instead of running, Blaise found himself frozen to the spot.

"What do you want from me?" Blaise asked.

The Bloody Baron didn't reply. Blaise wondered whether the ghost could speak at all. He had killed himself by slitting his own throat; Blaise could see the gaping wound, which was bleeding even now, so it was likely that not a single word had been able to pass those silvery lips in over a thousand years. A millennium of silence; how could anyone bear it?

The ghost floated away through the wall and Blaise found himself sprinting hurriedly in what he thought was the direction of common room. Next time he wanted to raid Slughorn's cabinet, he was bringing Draco with him; the boy was so pale that the Baron would probably mistake him for a ghost and leave Blaise alone.


	47. Small

XLVII. Small

Tracey couldn't quite believe her eyes. Blaise had just wandered out of Honeydukes with his pockets stuffed full of sweets, holding the largest bar of chocolate she'd ever seen in her life.

"Hi Tracey!" Blaise shouted, skipping towards her as though he'd eaten half the shop's supply of sweets already – which, considering it was Blaise, wouldn't be too unlikely. "Look what I've got."

Tracey looked at the chocolate in disbelief. "It's a little small, isn't it?" she drawled in the most sarcastic tone she could muster.

Blaise looked thoughtfully at the chocolate for a moment, then Tracey found herself standing in the middle of the street with her arms full of Blaise's sweets.

"Where are you going?" she snapped at Blaise.

"To get more chocolate," Blaise replied. "You just made me realise that I haven't got enough yet. I'll be back in a second, then we can go to the Three Broomsticks for a drink." He disappeared back into Honeydukes.

Tracey sighed. Blaise really was impossible.


	48. Faster

XLVIII. Faster

"Don't you have something to make this go a little faster?"

Draco glared at Blaise, disgusted. "That," he said sharply, "is a Firebolt. It's the fastest broom on the market. If it's not going fast enough, it's just because you happen to be terrible at flying it."

"No," Blaise retorted, running a hand through his hair and making the mess of black curls look even more impossibly windswept. "It's just slow."

"What part of 'fastest broom on the market' did you not understand?"

Blaise shrugged. "You really need to start importing your racing brooms from Italy or America or something. British racing brooms are just bad."

"No, Zabini. It's your flying that's bad," Draco snapped back.

Blaise sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he wasn't going to win this argument. Arguing about anything with Draco really wasn't worth the effort.


	49. Nightmares

XLIX. Nightmares

Blaise woke up in a cold sweat, his heart racing, and grabbed his wand to cast away the darkness that was threatening to choke him. It had always been dark, sleeping in a windowless dormitory in the dungeons, but now it was even darker – black, suffocating and deathly as the Lethifold.

Blaise got out of bed and half-ran out of the dormitory. He couldn't go back to sleep, he wouldn't go back to sleep, and he felt far from safe in a room with three young Death Eaters who would probably kill him rather than displease their Lord.

Theodore was sitting in the common room, just as Blaise had expected. The circles under his eyes were darker than ever, but Blaise wasn't surprised. Theodore might have been trying to hide the way he was feeling, but Blaise had known him long enough to know that even the supposedly-emotionless Theodore Nott couldn't escape this without suffering some effects.

Blaise sat on the sofa next to Theodore, grabbing hold of his arm and resting his head on his shoulder. Theodore didn't push him away; he was so absorbed in his book that Blaise wouldn't have been surprised if he hadn't noticed he was there at all. They sat in silence, a silence that was far more comforting than the screams of his nightmares of the snores of the Death Eaters he shared a room with. Silence was a good thing.

"You're lucky you don't sleep much, Theo," Blaise said at last.

Theodore shook his head. "You don't need to sleep to have nightmares, Blaise. All you have to do is look around you."


	50. Broken

L. Broken

Lavender Brown had always been beautiful. She had always reminded Blaise a little of Lisa Turpin, only Lavender's hair and eyes had a slightly more golden tint to them – perfect for a Gryffindor.

She had always been beautiful, had always been one of the few girls who was just out of his reach. Now, though, the scars she had ended up with in the final battle had brought her down to Earth enough for her to be within his grasp. Because of that the scars had made her even more beautiful, if anything.

"I love you, Lavender," he had said to her one evening when he'd finally worked up the courage to tell her.

"Of course you do, Blaise," she had laughed in reply.

"I really do," he protested upon realising that she though he was joking.

"What, me?" Lavender said, genuine surprise taking over her features. "Even though I'm broken?"

"I want to fix you."

"Some of my pieces are lost."

"I'll find them, you won't be broken anymore."

"They're too small and sharp enough to cut you when you touch them."

"I like a challenge," he replied, ignoring the sharp tone that had suddenly crept into her voice.

"No," she snapped out. He felt his blood run cold. "Blaise, after what you did to Parvati, I don't want to get involved with you like that. I can't. I… I don't trust you." She shook her head, looking as though she genuinely regretted the situation but couldn't bring herself to act in any other way. "I'm sorry."

Lavender Brown had always been beautiful, and even now that she was covered in hideous scars, she remained far out of his reach.


	51. Cheating

LI. Cheating

Blaise didn't like it when Daphne stared at him. If it were anyone else then he would have been able to ignore them, but it was Daphne, the one person he knew who had eyes the shade of a killing curse and the malice in her stare to match.

"What?"

"You. Are. Horrid," Daphne snarled.

Blaise frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"Pansy," Daphne replied. "I know exactly what happened between you two. It's bad enough that you insist on cheating in every single relationship you get into, but getting Pansy to cheat on Draco? That was _wrong_, Blaise. Even you should have enough sense to know that!"

"I didn't make her do anything," Blaise said sulkily.

"That doesn't matter," Daphne replied coldly. "You need to grow up Blaise. Grow up before you turn into your mother and ruin every single girl you meet."


	52. Bouncing

LII. Bouncing

Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret. Someone had heard Ron Weasley snigger it out in the corridor just after Draco had been attacked by that horrible Auror Moody, who seemed to have it in for every single Slytherin in the school, and unfortunately the name had stuck.

That was why Blaise had been expecting Draco to be in the worst mood possible. Draco sulked like a two-year-old even when in a good mood, so Blaise couldn't quite understand why he was acting almost happy when he should have been threatening to send to the next person who insulted him to Azkaban.

"What is _wrong _with you?" Blaise asked Draco one day in Potions.

Draco grinned in response and Blaise began to wonder whether being transformed into a ferret had permanently addled his brains.

"Pansy," Draco replied.

"What about her?"

"She's mine."

"That's what you were grinning about?" Blaise said, shaking his head in exasperation. "You could have asked her out at the start of the first year and she would have said yes, you know."

Draco stared at him blankly, evidently as completely oblivious as Blaise had thought he was.

Blaise chucked a handful of ginger into the cauldron, which promptly started belching out bright pink smoke.

Draco glared at him. "I'm never going to let you distract me in the middle of Potions again. You're an idiot, Zabini."

"So are you for not realising Pansy's been in love with you since forever," Blaise replied.

Blaise glared at Draco. Draco glared at Blaise. Professor Snape glared at them both with a look that told them that, had they been Gryffindors, they would have just earned themselves a month's worth of detention.


	53. Celebration

LIII. Celebration

Blaise resented the fact that he hadn't been allowed to join in with the celebrations. His mother had said that he was too young, he wasn't seventeen yet, but Blaise knew that what she really meant was that he would just get in the way of her special day. Well, she claimed it was special, but Blaise knew that there would be another day like this soon, the only difference being the fact that the groom would be a different man next time.

The groom, the ring and the dress were the only things that changed from time to time; everything else was the same. She always married on a Saturday, the sun was always shining, and the party-goers always came back to the manor's gardens for the celebration after the wedding itself.

But the groom would be gone within a year at the most; the dress rotting away in the back of a dusty cupboard that no one even knew existed; the wedding ring discarded, left in the house only for its value. Not that she cared about that; Blaise had stolen three of his mother's wedding rings already and she hadn't even noticed.

Blaise resented the fact that he hadn't been allowed to join in with the celebrations. He resented the fact that he was stuck alone in his room even though the sun was shining outside. He resented the fact that _she _got to dance around the rose gardens with a man whilst he had to keep himself hidden away in the dark (just like another discarded wedding gown) whilst everyone else laughed.

Sometimes Blaise really did wonder what he'd done to make his mother so utterly indifferent to his existence.


	54. Protect

LIV. Protect

Blaise wasn't used to being approached by Hufflepuffs. Hufflepuffs were generally timid creatures who stayed as far away from scary Slytherins like himself as they possibly could, which was why he was more that a little surprised when Justin Finch-Fletchley approached him after Ancient Runes that afternoon. The boy was a Hufflepuff and a mudblood to boot, so by all rights he should have been running away from Blaise, not coming towards him. It was confusing.

"I heard about you and Susan," Justin said quietly.

Ah. Susan Bones. His latest conquest. That explained why a Hufflepuff was talking to him, though it didn't explain the look of pure depression in the boy's eyes. Whatever was that about?

"Look after her, Zabini. She deserves it."

Justin looked to totally crushed that Blaise wanted to say that yes, he would look after Susan, but he wasn't about to go making promises he couldn't keep. Instead he just smiled, refusing to look the Hufflepuff in the eye. Why did it feel as though he'd done something wrong? The whole affair with Susan was only going to be a game, and no one ever got hurt by games, did they?


	55. Hiding

LV. Hiding

Horace Slughorn was doing his usual rounds of the Slytherin quarters, which he conducted every new moon without fail, just like he had done when he was first a teacher there. It was important that his students weren't behaving in any way that would have reflected badly on his reputation, now wasn't it?

He wasn't really surprised to see that Blaise Zabini was still awake even though it was nearing midnight. Sixth and seventh year students tended to develop odd sleeping patterns due to all the work they put in for their NEWTs, so there was nothing out of the usual there.

"Good evening, Zabini," Horace said.

"Professor!" Zabini jumped and hid something behind his back. Horace wondered for a moment how the boy had managed to survive in Slytherin for so long without learning the art of subtlety. "Why, what a lovely surprise to see you here."

"I know you're hiding something, my boy," Horace laughed. "Whatever is it?"

Zabini looked momentarily dismayed, then handed whatever he'd been so intent on hiding to Horace.

"A muggle comic book. Really, Zabini?" he scoffed. Normally when students hid something from an adult, it was because they had something on their person which was likely to cause trouble.

"Yes, Professor," Zabini muttered sulkily.

"Well you can have it back," Horace replied with a laugh. It was ever so amusing to see an almost-seventeen-year-old young man looking so delighted at the prospect of being allowed to read a comic book. "It's not as though muggle items are banned at Hogwarts, though I suppose some of your classmates think otherwise?"

Zabini shrugged in response and Horace decided to continue inspectingthe Slytherin quarters. He had met some eccentric characters in his time, but Blaise Zabini really was one of the oddest. Well, with a mother like he had, the boy was never going to have turned out normal. It was lucky he was just eccentric rather than outright insane.


	56. Wrong

LVI. Wrong

"Theo, that whole paragraph's wrong."

Blaise wasn't surprised when Theodore glowered at him (he hated being distracted when he was working), but decided to ignore the glare and correct his friend's mistake instead.

"Would you care to tell me what exactly is wrong with it, Zabini?"

"That right there. That was messed up," Blaise replied, poking the relevant part of the parchment, smudging the ink on the page and earning himself a leer from Tracey as he nearly knocked over her inkpot. "That's not how you cast a cheering charm at all."

"Well it works for me," Theodore said curtly.

"But it's not the answer Flitwick wants," Blaise replied.

Theodore turned back to his essay and didn't do anything about it.

Later that evening, Blaise was rather surprised when Tracey came up to talk to him of her own accord.

"You shouldn't have done that earlier."

"Shouldn't have done what?"

"Shouldn't have corrected Theodore, that's what," Tracey replied.

"I was only trying to help," Blaise muttered.

"In future, don't" Tracey snapped. "You know he can't stand mistakes."

"He needs to accept that fact that he's only human."

"We both know that's never going to happen, Blaise."


	57. Flying

LVII. Flying

"Theo," Blaise whined. "Why do you never want to come flying with us?"

"Because, Zabini, I don't like flying. Is it really that hard to understand?" Theodore snapped.

"But we're all going. Me and Draco and Greg and Vince."

"Exactly," Theodore replied. "Crabbe will probably try and hex me while we're flying, and Goyle's such a lumbering idiot that he'd probably knock me off accidentally."

"Goyle's on the Quidditch team, Theo. He's good at flying."

"He's on the Quidditch team because his skull's so thick that even a bludger couldn't dent it," Theodore sighed. "Now go off with Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. I do _not _want to come flying with you."

"Fine. Moody git."


	58. Shut up

LVIII. Shut up

Blaise was singing again. He had had far too much to drink down the Hog's Head – at least that's what the annoying sensible voice in his head was telling him. Blaise didn't think he'd had too much at all. There was no such thing as 'too much'.

He stared dumbly at the entrance to the Slytherin common room for a moment, realising that he'd forgotten the password.

"Pureblood?"

Nope.

"Mudblood?"

Still nothing.

"Ferret?"

Obviously not.

"Damned sodding firewhisky, it's affecting my brain!"

On the word 'firewhisky', the wall had slid open. Blaise blinked slowly; evidently one of the fifth years had chosen the password again without running it past Slughorn. Well, it was better than when Daphne and Pansy had used the names of hair potions as passwords, right? All the other boys had been stuck outside for most of the week.

He stumbled into the common room, stepping on Millicent's cat's tail as he did so. The cat yowled and Blaise began to sing again, howling out the Ballad of Odo the Hero at the top of his lungs. The sensible voice told him that he was going to get in trouble if he didn't quieten down, but as usual he ignored it.

"Zabini," Theodore's voice growled from his usual chair in the corner. "Shut up or I swear I will feed you your own vocal chords."

The sensible voice told him that Theodore did in fact know a spell that could do that, but he couldn't be bothered to listen. He continued to sing, determined to get to the end of his song. Theodore was looking at him, appalled.

"Zabini, Salazar's blood! I will pay you to shut up, so just stop singing!" Theodore snapped out, a pained look on his face.

Blaise stopped.

"Okies, Theo dear."

That was when he ended up passing out of the sofa, mercifully putting an end to his attempts at drunken singing.


	59. Cut down

LIX. Cut down

"You have an addiction."

Blaise drained his fourth cup of coffee and glared at Theodore.

"I'm perfectly willing to admit I have an addiction, just not do anything about it."

"If you carry on drinking that much coffee, you'll give yourself a heart attack," Theodore said sternly.

Blaise shrugged. "I'm trying to cut down."

"Liar."

"I am!" Blaise protested.

"Putting half-a-teaspoon less of sugar in your coffee is not going to help," Theodore snapped. "You're still putting five and a half teaspoons of the stuff in."

"I like sweet things."

Theodore groaned. "You're just not going to listen to me, are you?"

"Nope," Blaise replied with a grin.


	60. Idiot

LX. Idiot

Tracey was going to kill Blaise. She would already have done so if it hadn't been illegal, but right now life in Azkaban was looking to be a far more attractive prospect than working with Blaise in Potions class. Really.

The whole thing was Theodore's fault. He had insisted on working with Daphne for once, leaving Draco to work with Pansy, and Millicent, Vince and Greg to huddle up in the corner and attempt to get a half-decent potion. She would have preferred to work with Greg than Blaise; she would have preferred to work with _anyone _other than Blaise, but no, Theodore just had to go and make her life difficult, didn't he?

Tracey had done everything she could to avoid disaster. She had even taken on most of the work to make sure no one got killed, leaving Blaise with the supposedly simple task of crushing up beetles into a shiny red pulp to give their potion colour. No one could get hurt if that was all he had to do, could they?

Apparently Blaise could make even the simplest Potions-related tasks harmful. He had been in the middle of grinding up the beetles when a smile had appeared on his face. When Blaise smiled like that then something was very, very wrong.

"Hey, I bet this stuff would make good eye shadow!" he exclaimed. "The colour's wonderful."

Before she could stop him, Blaise had smeared the mixture above his eyes… and somehow managed to get it into them.

"That stings!" he whined. "Ok, maybe that wasn't a good idea. Owiee…"

"No," Tracey groaned in disbelief, not quite managing to get her head round what she was seeing. "No! You are not allowed to be that much of an idiot!"

Unfortunately talking sense into Blaise was going to be an impossible task. It would be far easier if she just killed him instead and blamed it on an exploding potion. The sad thing was that it wouldn't even look like an unbelievable situation.

Then Professor Snape glided over and ordered Blaise to go up to the hospital wing and get out of his classroom, which Blaise quickly did, all the while trying furiously to blink bits of ground-up beetle out of his eyes.

Tracey glared at Theodore, who was sitting near the back of the room with Daphne and looking throughly relieved that he hadn't been next to Blaise for once. She was never going to work with Blaise in potions again. It would be easier (and safer) just to kill him. Really.


	61. Light

LXI. Lights

"Guess what, Theo? Do you know what muggles have instead of lumos spells to make light when it's dark?"

Theodore glared at him. "I neither know nor care, Zabini. Now go away. Tracey and I were in the middle of a conversation before you barged in."

Blaise ignored him. "Well instead of lumos they have these awesome things called light blubs that run of eceltricity."

Tracey appeared to be trying not to laugh, an event so rare that it immediately caught Blaise's attention.

"What did I say?"

"You mean muggles have _light bulbs _that run off _electricity_," Tracey corrected him.

"Well what I said is what it said in the book," Blaise replied.

Tracey shook her head, exasperated. "And this is exactly why the next Muggle Studies teacher they employ needs to actually know something about _muggles_."


	62. Dancing

LXII. Dancing

Blaise was bored. It was the first major Ministry ball since the war had ended and he was having to be on his best behaviour – he had been a Slytherin, and that alone had been enough to convince these Ministry idiots that he could well have been allied with the Dark Lord, which of course he hadn't been. Still, it meant that he had to behave, and behaving meant no drinking. Tracey and Theodore had told him that sternly enough; he was only allowed to arrive there with them and go back home in their company if he promised not to touch a single drop of firewhisky.

Blaise was beginning to think himself in Hell. Tantalus couldn't have yearned for water more than he yearned to have an excuse to act like an imbecile, pass out and claim no knowledge of his actions whatsoever come the morning. He was bored. He wanted a drink. He hated Tracey and Theodore and society in general right now. He was _bored_.

"You aren't doing yourself any favours by sitting there sulking," Tracey snapped at him. "If you carry on with such a horrid look on your face then someone's going to think you were upset by You-Know-Who's death."

He almost laughed at her use of that epithet. You-Know-Who indeed. Any self-respecting Slytherin would have called him the Dark Lord even now. You-Know-Who just sounded stupid, dull, like something a mudblood or a Hufflepuff would say. Then he reminded himself that Tracey's family _were_ Hufflepuffs and muggles and refrained from passing comment.

"I'm bored," he whinged instead.

"If you're so bored then why don't you go over there and dance with Daphne?" Tracey said pointedly. Blaise didn't quite understand the tone in her voice.

Daphne was sitting a few tables away, looking nearly as bored as Blaise was feeling. Well, to anyone else she would have looked perfectly cheerful as she amused herself with mindless chatter and left bloody red smears of lipstick on every glass of wine she drank. Blaise knew better though. When Daphne giggled like that it meant that someone was going to get cursed. Whatever. That wasn't his problem, was it?

"Daphne never dances," he said instead. "She always turns people down when they ask her to dance."

"That," Tracey snapped, "Is because she's waiting for you."

Blaise just laughed.

"Wherever did you come up with a ridiculous idea like that?"


	63. Climbing

LXIII. Climbing

"I hate you right now, Blaise. You could have at least warned me that you were going to make me walk through a load of mud," Daphne shrieked.

"You're the one who wanted to go for a walk," Blaise retorted.

"Yes, in the rose gardens. I didn't want to go wandering around the bloody woods!"

"You said I couldn't smoke in the rose gardens."

"That's because you can't. You'll annoy the fairies if you do."

"Which is why we're in the woods," Blaise replied cheerfully. "I bet I could climb up there!" He pointed to the nearest tree.

"Blaise, that tree's rotten, you're going to fa…" she began, but he'd clambered up to the top before she could finish her sentence.

"Look at me, Queenie! I'm on top of the tree!"

Before Daphne could hex him for using that hated nickname, the branch Blaise was standing on snapped and he fell, landing in a pile of leaves. He looked very disgruntled.

Daphne laughed; it served him right for being so daft.


	64. Sneaking

LXIV. Sneaking

"My days of sneaking around are over!"

Theodore didn't quite trust Blaise's pronouncement, not least because the boy had just stumbled in to the common room at gone midnight again.

"Really? How so?"

"I'm finished with Lisa," Blaise replied.

"Again?"

"Yes, Theo. Again," Blaise snapped. "And this time it's permanent."

"You said that last time."

"This time I mean it," Blaise muttered bitterly. "I'm so glad I got out of there… and back in again, then back out again, then back in again, then back out again, but now I'm definitely out of it for good so anyway it doesn't matter."

Theodore raised an eyebrow.

Blaise scowled at him.

"And why have you left Turpin this time?"

"She's an ugly little bint, that's why," Blaise sneered.

The venom in his tone would have been enough to tell Theodore that Blaise was lying even if there hadn't been tears in his eyes.


	65. Spying

LXV. Spying

"You shouldn't bother following him, Zabini."

Blaise froze mid-step as he realised that Theodore was shooting him the iciest glare possible.

"Why not, Theo?" Blaise whined. "Draco's been disappearing almost every night since we started back. I want to see whether there's any truth to the rubbish he was spouting on the train."

"For a Slytherin you're awfully bad at spying on people," Theodore drawled.

"So you know what's going on?"

"Yes."

"Will you tell me what it is?"

"No," Theodore replied curtly. "Trust me, it'll be better for all of us if you can plead ignorance of the whole affair when the time comes."

Blaise frowned. "What's going on?"

"You don't want to know. Just leave Draco to his own damnation and try to keep in the shadows."

Blaise still wanted to know what was going on, but he was no Gryffindor.

"Alright. I won't follow him," he said.


	66. Eavesdropping

LXVI. Eavesdropping

Blaise was used to hearing people's voices in the house at odd hours of the night, but not like this. Bacchanalian revelries were his mother's speciality; civilised, hush-voiced conversations certainly were not. That was why he hid himself in the shadows so he could neither see nor be seen, but he could hear every word that was being said. Eavesdropping was such a useful skill.

"But I hope we can count on your support for the new order, Mrs Morgenstern."

"It's Miss, not Mrs," his mother snapped. "Miss Magdalena Zabini. Or did my husband's passing escape your attention?"

"Of course not, Miss Zabini. Aloysius Morgenstern's death was a tragic loss to our society, tainted as it has become by bad blood."

"Five brothers survive him," she replied offhandedly. "The line is safe."

"But what of your own line? Your son has not yet joined us."

"I've already explained that you won't be able to speak with Blaise. I'm afraid he's visiting his aunt Giselle in Bern right now."

This was enough to confirm Blaise's worst fears. Why would his mother tell them he was visiting Zia Giselle, whom he hadn't seen for years? Whoever this man was, he was obviously a Death Eater and here on business.

"Kindly call again at another time," his mother said. The tone in her voice was enough to tell the Death Eater that there were to be no arguments about this.

Blaise heard the familiar crack of apparition. His heart was practically in his throat when his mother opened the drawing room door and glared out at him, her eyes blazing.

"Blaise Zabini," she hissed, "What have I told you about eavesdropping on Mama's private conversations?"


	67. Library

LXVII. Library

"Pansy and Draco."

Blaise make sure to use his most conspiratorial tone as he said this, but Daphne didn't seem interested. He felt mildly put out.

"What about them?" she asked.

"I saw them in the library," Blaise replied with a smirk. "They weren't studying the books."

"Obviously," Daphne sighed.

Blaise felt _very_ put out. This was wonderful gossip and Daphne was his gossip partner – why wasn't she interested in this?

"Why do you seem not to care about this wonderful bit of gossip?" Blaise said sulkily.

"Are you really that unobservant?" Daphne asked incredulously. "They've been going out for the past two weeks."

"So that's why Pansy's been less sulkily," Blaise said, realising suddenly dawning on him. "I understand now."

Daphne shook her head in disbelief. "How in Merlin's name did you manage to get into Slytherin if you failed to notice _that_?"


	68. Seriously

LXVIII. Seriously

"Guess what, Blaise? The Chudley Cannons have just won this year's Quidditch tournament!"

Blaise looked up at Millicent in shock. "Whoa… seriously?" he asked.

Millicent nodded, then promptly burst out laughing.

"What?"

"Daphne was right," Millicent snickered out at last. "You really do know nothing about Quidditch."


	69. Happy

LXIX. Happy

"I'm happy for you." Daphne barely managed to get the words out without choking on them. Why did he have to be so happy with the situation, and why did he insist on telling her? Why should she care that he was with that Ravenclaw brat now? Why did he even think she'd care?

"I'm happy that you're happy." Blaise replied, oblivious.

"I'm happy that you're happy that… I'm stopping this right now." It was too much effort to carry on smiling.

Blaise frowned. "What's the matter, Daphne?"

"Nothing's the matter," she snapped in reply.

Except for the fact that she wasn't happy at all, but Blaise didn't need to know that.


	70. Truth

LXX. Truth

"Well I heard it from Lisa, who heard it from Su, who heard it from Parvati, who heard it from Gi…"

"She said. He said. Who cares who said it? I just want to know if it's true! What happened at the Department of Mysteries?" Daphne's eyes were blazing, so Blaise took that as his cue to shut up and stop explaining.

"Blaise, is the Dark Lord back or not?" Daphne snarled.

"Well apparently," Blaise replied.

"He is," Theodore interrupted, his tone icier than Blaise thought he'd ever heard it before. "He's been back for over a year, but only now are any of you believing it."

"How do you know that, Theo?" Blaise asked.

"You forget who my father is," Theodore replied. "And if you don't believe me, ask Draco. His father's just been caught. It'll be all over the papers by this time tomorrow."


	71. Bad

LXXI. Bad

Blaise didn't think he'd ever seen Vince look so thoroughly upset. They had only lost the Quidditch final to Gryffindor; it wasn't as though the world was about to end.

"This is worse than when someone put a sticking charm on all the toilet seats," Vince grunted into his pillow.

"Sorry about that."

"That was you? I had to go that day!"

Blaise shrugged, "Well if you would be too dumb to realise when things are hexed, Vinny…"

"Don't call me that or I will hex you into the middle of next week."

"I'd like to see you try," Blaise shot back. "Seeing as you're practically a troll and you're still not strong enough to severely injure some Gryffindor players with a bludger… or maybe you were just too thick to realise that that's what a beater's job is?"

"I'd like to see a ponce like you play Quidditch," Vince spat.

Blaise laughed. "Don't be stupid, Crabbe. You know it'd just mess my hair up."

"That," Vince replied, "is exactly my point. Now shut up before I hex you. I'm having a really bad day."


	72. Revenge

LXXII. Revenge

"What's up, Queenie? You look like you're about to cruciate someone."

Daphne glared at Blaise. "Call me 'Queenie' again and I might just have to kill you."

"What's the matter?" Blaise asked. He was either pretending not to have heard the last thing she had said, or he really was as oblivious as he made himself look. Daphne strongly suspected the latter.

"Dolores Umbridge," Daphne muttered. "She just put Astoria detention for the next month because she refused to join that stupid Inquisitorial Squad."

"You got away with not joining though."

"That's because I make sure that my Defence Marks are so bad that Umbridge doesn't think I'll challenge her on anything," Daphne replied.

"Very Slytherin of you," Blaise drawled.

"Yes. Unlike you. You're just failing Defence because you're useless at it."

"I'm not useless at revenge though," Blaise said with a smile. "Potions, perhaps, but not revenge. And my Defence marks aren't too bad. I got an E in the last essay I did, in case you've forgotten."

"Alright," Daphne sighed. "But what did you just say about revenge? Do you think I could do something to make Umbridge leave Astoria alone?"

"Well, let's just say that if you want revenge then I know just the people you need to speak to."

"Who?"

"Gred and Forge Weasley."

Daphne had never felt so horrified in her life. "No, I am not asking the Weasley twins for help. I'll never live it down. Slytherins can't go asking Gryffindors for help!"

"Even when facing up to evil ex-Hufflepuff dictators like Umbridge?"

"_Especially _when facing up to evil ex-Hufflepuff dictators like Umbridge," Daphne snapped.

"Fine." Blaise shrugged nonchalantly. "But so you know, they're better at this than you are. Either way, I don't think you'll have to worry about Astoria for much longer."

"And why's that?"

"Well let's just say that if my sources are right, which they usually are, Dolores Umbridge will be gone from Hogwarts in a very colourful, sparkly bang by the end of the week if the Weasleys get their way." He grinned. "And all I can say if good luck to the Gryffindors, because better they get expelled than us, right?"


	73. Secret

LXXIII. Secret

Blaise had never felt so uncomfortable in his life. His mother's newest husband was already closeted away in his study, which left Blaise alone with his mother. He hated being in the same room as her right now, hated it, but he couldn't bring himself to move. It was warm in there and the chair was comfortable… and he wanted answers.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were never married to my father?"

His mother looked up at him lazily, her eyes glittering and catlike in the light of the fire.

"I assumed you knew."

"How could I have known when you never bothered to tell me?"

His voice even sounded bitter to his own ears. He flinched at his own tone, wishing that he'd just kept his mouth shut.

"Well it's not exactly a secret," she replied.

"I found that out when I realised that everyone else knew."

"Then what in Hecate's name are you worrying for?" she snapped.

"I don't like the fact that everyone else seems to know more about my life than I do."


	74. Rejection

LXXIV. Rejection

Blaise didn't think he'd laughed so hard in years. Montague was a poncy git if ever he'd met one, completely full of himself because he was convinced that he'd be Slytherin Quidditch captain next year, so it had been highly amusing to watch the boy get hauled down not just a peg or two but right down into his own grave.

"What are you sniggering about now, Zabini?" Theodore sighed.

"Montague," Blaise spluttered out. "Just… Veela girl… tried to…" His words got lost as he laughed.

"From that load of nonsense I assume that Montague just attempted to ask out the Beauxbatons champion?" Theodore said.

Blaise, still laughing too hard to get the words out, nodded.

"And of course she's all over Roger Davies," Blaise said as soon as he could force himself to speak.

"What, the mudblood whom you assumed was Tracey's brother until I explained to you that their surnames are spelt differently?"

"Yeah," Blaise replied. "And do you know what Montague said when the Veela girl explained she wasn't interested."

"Does it look like I'm interested in knowing this?"

"Well he said 'It hurts to see you with Davies, my love. It hurts because I wish it were me'," Blaise sniggered. "And it got even worse. He started going on about he she was obviously an angel or a nymph or…"

"Or a Veela?"

Blaise nodded, noticing that Theodore looked thoroughly unimpressed.

"How can you not find this funny?" Blaise cried, astonished by his friend's lack of a sense of humour.

"Because there's no fun in humiliating people like Montague, that's why," Theodore replied. "He's about as easy to torment as Draco."


	75. Departure

LXXV. Departure

Blaise was sulking. He didn't want to go home for the holidays, not in the slightest. He had been happier during his time at Hogwarts than he had ever been at home with his mother and ever-changing stepfathers, and now he had nearly three months off before he could return to school (home) for his second year.

"I don't see why you look so annoyed, Zabini," Theodore drawled. "One would assume that you didn't actually want to go home."

"Don't," Blaise said sulkily, gazing wistfully as the school as the train started to move. It wouldn't be long now until he couldn't see it at all. "I want to stay here where I can see all my friends."

"Don't start crying now," Theodore said. "Honestly, it's only a school."

"And you're looking forward to going home, are you?" Blaise said. He very much doubted it.

"Yes. I'll have my library back."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "You're such a Ravenclaw."

Theodore glared at him. "And to think I was just about to ask you if you wanted to visit at some point during the holidays. But of course if you don't want to…"

Blaise's heart leapt. "Really?"

"Yes. I think both of us could do with a break from our parents at some point," Theodore replied.

Blaise found himself smiling as Hogwarts disappeared out of sight completely. Suddenly the summer holidays didn't seem so terrifying.


	76. Confession

LXXVI. Confession

"Who was the young woman in your room last night, Blaise?"

Blaise started at the question, dropping the spoonful of sugar that he'd meant to put in his coffee all over the table. He cursed and, leaving the spilt sugar where it lay, tried again to sweeten his coffee enough to make it palatable.

"Don't ignore me, Blaise; if you deny anything I'll just know you're lying."

"There wasn't a woman in my room last night, mother."

Magdalena Zabini shot her son the most piercing glare possible – a look Blaise had seen so many times in his life that it didn't affect him at all.

"What _are_ you saying? I've already told you that I know there was someone there."

"I'm saying, mother, that I'm an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde type," he drawled in response.

His mother, having no familiarity with muggle literature whatsoever, completely missed the reference, much to his amusement.

"Don't be silly, Blaise. You've never wanted to be an Unspeakable," she snapped. "Now tell me who was in your room. I know there was someone else in there."

"I'm not denying that," Blaise replied, adding a sixth spoonful of sugar to his coffee and, pleased that it was finally sweet enough, starting to drink it.

"Then what _are_ you doing?"

"There _was_ someone in my rooms last night," Blaise said slowly, "But there wasn't a _woman _there."

He had been expecting her to hit the roof. He had been expecting her to hex him and land him in St Mungo's for a month. He had been expecting her to get that glint in her eyes that she always got when she decided someone's time was up. What he got was none of these things.

"Oh good," his mother sighed with relief. "It wouldn't do any good for us if you were to get some common slut of a girl pregnant. At least with a boy there isn't any risk of that."

She went back to her breakfast as though nothing had happened, and Blaise felt a little put out that his confession hadn't had the dramatic consequences he'd almost been looking forward to having to endure.


	77. Chocolate

LXXVII. Chocolate

Theodore looked faintly ill.

"How in Salazar's name is it possible for one person to consume such vast quantities of chocolate?" he asked.

Blaise shrugged. "I have no idea what you're on about, just so you know."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"So you're not aware of how much chocolate you've eaten today?"

Blaise frowned. "Yes. Four bars. That's not much."

"It's not even midday yet."

"Yes, and your point is?" Blaise said sulkily.

Theodore shook his head in disbelief.

"You really do have a chocolate addiction, don't you?"


	78. Lips

LXXVIII. Lips

"You're wearing lipstick."

Draco looked vaguely terrified by this fact. Blaise only grinned more widely.

"Yes. Do you like it?"

"You're wearing bright red lipstick," Draco said slowly. He looked more scared by the second.

"I know that," Blaise replied.

"Why exactly do you insist on making yourself look like a Knockturn Alley prostitute?" Draco snapped. Evidently he felt rather embarrassed on Blaise's behalf.

"You'd know all about Knockturn Alley whores, wouldn't you, Draco?" Blaise said with a smirk.

Draco flushed again, apparently considered hexing Blaise, then walked off without another word.


	79. Strawberries

LXXIX. Strawberries

It was the only time that Blaise thought that Draco was completely and utterly insane. Of course Draco was annoying and they argued all the time, what with Draco being his usual, stuck-up self and Blaise teasing him for it, but that was just jokes. In this case, however, Blaise thought that Draco was being a complete lunatic and was trying to make him see sense.

"I don't get it," Blaise said for what must have been the tenth time in the last half-hour. "How can you not like strawberries?"

"They're too red," Draco snapped. "I don't like red things. It's a horrible, Gryffindor colour."

Blaise rolled his eyes. First Draco had claimed to dislike strawberries because they were too sour, then because he didn't like the texture, and now he was saying that he didn't like them because they were too red. Blaise finally realised that trying to convince Draco that strawberries were lovely and he really should eat them was a totally lost cause. He decided that his time would be better spent talking to Theodore, whom he found in the dormitory reading a terrifyingly thick book.

"You look annoyed," Theodore observed.

"Draco refuses to eat strawberries," Blaise replied. "He's being stubborn and stupid. How can anyone not like strawberries?"

The way Theodore was looking at him made Blaise wonder whether he'd just inadvertently said something idiotic.

"What?"

"Didn't you realise that Malfoy's allergic to strawberries?"

Blaise groaned. "Trust Draco to be allergic to anything with a bit of colour."


	80. Chaos

LXXX. Chaos

"Millie, would it be possible for me to kill Blaise and get away with it?" Tracey shrieked as she came into the dormitory.

Millicent, who had been sitting on her bed with a Quidditch magazine, shrugged in reply.

"I dunno. What's he done now?"

"He's destroyed my Charms notes," Tracey howled as she sat down next to Millicent. "All the notes I made for our next Charms essay – gone. I swear he's like a tornado; he blows through unannounced and unwanted leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. That boy is chaos in human form."

Millicent shrugged. "You gotta admit, it is more fun when he's around."

"Fun?" Tracey looked exasperated. "You call Blaise's antics _fun_?"

"Well he's more fun than Draco," Millicent replied.

Tracey couldn't argue with that.


	81. Bother

LXXXI. Bother

Blaise was beginning to wonder what part of him had ever thought that Professor Slughorn's dinner parties would be fun. If only he'd kept his mouth shut… then again, he couldn't have done that. He couldn't have forced Theodore to go through this; someone really would have ended up brutally murdered if he had.

Someone _was_ going to get brutally murdered soon, Blaise thought, if they weren't more careful. Said 'someone' was that oaf McLaggen, whom Blaise had the misfortune of being stuck sitting next to. McLaggen was all elbows and kept knocking Blaise as he was trying to eat.

The final straw came when McLaggen knocked Blaise's hand as he was trying to pour gravy over his food in an attempt to make it edible (Slughorn, it seemed, had thought it a good idea to do the cooking himself rather than letting the House Elves get on with their job), which sent the gravy flying all over Blaise's lap.

"Oh bol…" he started, then stopped himself upon remembering where he was. What could he say that wasn't a swear word? "Oh… bother."

FloraorHestia Carrow (he couldn't tell the two apart even after being in the same House as them for four years) giggled at his exclamation while her sister just rolled her eyes.

Hermione Granger scowled at him, evidently having figured out what Blaise had almost said. That girl was too perceptive.

"Careful, Zabini!" Slughorn boomed jovially.

"Yes, do be careful," McLaggen drawled.

Blaise smiled at the boy but inside he was seething. Cormac McLaggen wasn't going to be Gryffindor's pretty boy for very much longer, not once Blaise had his revenge on the clumsy oaf.


	82. Death wish

LXXXII. Death wish

Theodore was going to murder Blaise – slowly, painfully and in as gruesome a manner as he could think up which, seeing as his father's library was stuffed full of old Dark Arts texts, was very gruesome indeed.

Every time Theodore ended up dragging Blaise home from the Hog's Head, he vowed to himself that he'd never do it again, but every time he ended up having to drag Blaise out of another stupid situation. This week it had involved a group of vampires and a hag, and Theodore didn't really want to waste time thinking about how Blaise had managed to get into such a mess in the first place.

"Theo, I have an idea. Let's go bother Snape," Blaise said. "Should be funny seeing if he's really part vampire, yanno? Could always body bind him 'n leave him in the sunlight when the sun comes up, see if he goes kaboom when it goes bright. Would explain why he's always looking like a vampire in those robes, so he's obviously 'lergic to sun and stuff."

"Blaise," Theodore growled, "Shut up before I use a permanent silencing charm on you."

Blaise just grinned stupidly in reply, leading Theodore to wonder if the boy really did have a death wish.


	83. Hug

LXXXIII. Hug

Tracey felt thoroughly miserable. She had just returned for the start of her sixth year – the only one in her family left at Hogwarts now that all her brothers had finished school. It was very, very odd. They had always been there for her, always, despite the fact that they were Hufflepuffs and she was a Slytherin.

The pit of snakes she was trapped in had never made her feel quite so lonely before.

She almost shrieked when someone wrapped their arms around her. It was a totally unexpected gesture and so Tracey's instant reaction was to whip out her wand and threaten to hex the person responsible.

Blaise Zabini glared at her sulkily. "What's the matter with you, Tracey?"

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" she snapped.

"Giving you a hug," Blaise replied. "Because you look rather upset, and hugs make everything better. Well, hugs, chocolate and firewhisky, but that's not really the point. I have chocolate if you want some."

Theodore sat down next to them. He looked more than a little bemused.

"What's Zabini up to now?"

"Why do you always assume I'm up to something?" Blaise huffed. "I was only giving Tracey a hug."

"Maybe because you usually _are_ up to something?" Theodore suggested.

Tracey couldn't help but laugh. Suddenly the pit of snakes she was in didn't seem like such a bad place anymore.


	84. Kiss

LXXXIV. Kiss

"Millie, I love you."

Millicent decided that ignoring Blaise completely would be the best thing to do. He was obviously spouting rubbish in order to try and get her to write his Potions essay again.

"Seriously, Millie. I do."

"And why is that, Zabini?" she snapped. "Because you're too lazy to write your own essays?"

"No," Blaise replied. "I love you because you, Tracey and Daphne are the only girls I can actually have a conversation with without them spouting out that they're in love with me and trying to kiss me."

"You do realise that that's mostly your own fault, don't you?"

"Don't be silly, Millie," Blaise replied. "And since you offered, will you do my Potions homew…"

"No."


	85. Affair

LXXXV. Affair

"I wasn't even doing anything!"

"No, but you were thinking about it and that's bad enough."

Daphne had never been so furious in her life. She had just caught Blaise flirting with her poor, innocent little sister – her _sister _– and he had the audacity to claim he hadn't done anything wrong.

"Queenie, please," Blaise cried. "I was only playing."

"How can you not see that the fact that you were 'only playing' is the problem here?" Daphne shrieked. "You're thoughtless, completely and utterly thoughtless. It was bad enough to have to deal with Pansy when you were done with her, and I am _not _letting you do the same thing to Astoria."

"But…"

"Zabini, just promise me one thing? Never get married, ok. You'll end up having affair after affair and driving your poor wife to suicide."

"I'm sorry, Daphne."

"No, Blaise, you're not. You don't even know what sorry means."


	86. Marriage

LXXXVI. Marriage

"I've decided I'm not going to get married."

Theodore shrugged in response. "I gathered that quite some time ago. You don't seem the type to be inclined to commit to someone."

"No, Theo. I mean it," Blaise replied. "I'm not going to get married, not even to continue the bloodline."

"You're afraid of turning out like your mother, I take it?"

"No," Blaise replied. "I just don't want to get my heart broken."

"You're a true coward, Zabini, do you realise that?"

"I'm a Slytherin," Blaise replied. "Running from things is what we do best, isn't it?"

"I think you're confusing cowardice with survival."


	87. Conversation

LXXXVII. Conversation

Blaise was getting very annoyed. He had been having a nice chat with Daphne in the common room, then Pansy had decided to come over and spoil it all. Now she and Daphne were twittering on about Gilderoy Lockheart's hear or something similar and Blaise couldn't stand it.

Then he had an idea.

"Pansy darling, will you go stand over there for one moment?" Blaise said sweetly.

"Why?" Pansy asked, not looking happy about being dragged away from Daphne. Well, Blaise thought, she should have thought of that before she came over and interrupted the conversation _he _was having with Daphne, shouldn't she?

"I want to talk about you and I don't want you to hear," Blaise replied with the nicest smile he could muster.

Pansy was obviously hurt by his remarks. She stormed off to the dormitory in a sulk.

Daphne glared at Blaise.

"What was that for?"

"I got rid of her, didn't I?"

"You," Daphne growled, "Are the most inconsiderate little boy I've ever met in my life."

She stormed off too.

Blaise groaned; that hadn't gone at all as he had planned.


	88. Slamming

LXXXVIII. Slamming

"Blaise Zabini, you do not slam doors like that."

Blaise's mother had just burst into the room after him, looking thoroughly annoyed.

He glowered petulantly back at her.

"Blaise, you are twelve years old. You're acting like a six year old," she snapped. "Don't slam doors and don't make a fuss."

"You were the one who sent me up here," he said sulkily.

"Yes. You know I want to speak to Mr. Vaisey alone."

"And I happen to know that Mr. Vaisey's married," Blaise shot back. "You shouldn't be acting like you are."

"Come now, Blaise darling," his mother said quickly. "Do behave for once."

"I will if you do, Mama," he muttered.

She sighed and shook her head.

"Blaise, please…"

He glared at her in silence, knowing that nothing he said would make his mother see sense.

She left and Blaise threw himself down on his bed, sulking because he knew he'd lost this battle and that his mother's already terrible reputation would soon be in complete tatters.

The door slammed shut again of its own accord.


	89. Books

LXXXIX. Books

Theodore's part of the dormitory was a complete mess again. Blaise didn't mind most messes, but this mess consisted entirely of books and parchment, and seeing that many books outside of a library was more than a little disturbing as far as he was concerned.

Blaise decided that he couldn't stand seeing Theodore's Ancient Runes notes scattered on the floor any longer. The parchments were glaring accusingly up at him, reminding him of the three Ancient Runes essays he kept forgetting to do and the row he was undoubtedly going to get come their next lesson. He decided that he was going to have to take drastic measures and actually tidy up.

When Theodore came back from the library, he didn't thank Blaise like Blaise had been expecting. Instead he eyed the now neatly organised books and parchments with an expression akin to absolute horror.

"Zabini," he growled, "You've ruined my system." And he promptly undid all of Blaise's hard work. Theodore's part of the room returned to its state of permanent chaos.

Blaise suddenly felt a totally unexpected wave of sympathy for House Elves. Maybe he should go and join that organisation Hermione Granger had set up. Then he thought about what he'd just considered, decided he'd gone completely mad, and flung himself onto the floor with a loud groan.

"That's the last time I ever do you a favour, Theo."


	90. News

XC. News

"Daphne, look at this."

The shocked tone in Blaise's voice would have been enough to catch Daphne's attention on its own, but the fact that he was awake enough to be worried about something this early in the morning was disturbing in itself.

"What is it?" Daphne asked as she poured herself a cup of tea.

"The Weird Sisters."

"What about them?"

"They've broken up."

Daphne dropped her teacup, which smashed all over the floor. Luckily Pansy made the mess disappear before there was any risk of her robes getting tea-stained.

"What?" she shrieked, grabbing the newspaper off Blaise.

"The Weird Sisters. Have. Broken. Up," Blaise said slowly.

"No."

"Yes."

"I don't see what you're so worried about," Millicent muttered. "It's only a band."

"Only a band? Only a band? Millie, you odd, odd girl: the Weird Sisters are not 'just a band'. Their music is a way of life!" Blaise cried.

"This is the worst day in the history of days," Daphne whined before helping herself to another cup of tea.

"Mental," Millicent mumbled into her breakfast.


	91. Hell

XCVI. Hell

"What the Hell!"

Theodore glared at Blaise. He had just managed to get to sleep when Blaise's shrieking had woken him up. He supposed he ought to have been used to it by now.

"Well thank you very much for disturbing my rest," Theodore muttered.

"Bollocks to your rest. I've just found out I'm going to die!"

"What?"

"I'm going to die and go straight to Hell," Blaise wailed.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because my tarot cards say so."

Theodore groaned. "There is no branch of magic more imprecise than Divination. Now shut up before I make your prediction come true and murder you for being an annoying pest."

He turned over on his side and tried to go back to sleep, but unfortunately his rest was over. Damn Zabini and his stupid tarot cards.


	92. Troublemaker

XCII. Troublemaker

"Nott, do you know why Zabini's been insisting on making so much trouble recently?" Draco said tersely.

Theodore eyed Draco coldly, wondering what had happened that was so dire that Draco was bothering to talk to him in public.

"He's always been a troublemaker, Malfoy. Don't tell me you've only just noticed that."

"Well Malfoy's never been observant, has he, Theo?" Tracey Davis drawled.

Draco spluttered indignantly. He looked as though he was about to make some comment about Tracey's gender and or blood status and how those things made her ineligible to pass comment on anything, but Theodore was glad to note that he at least had the sense to hold his tongue for once.

"Professor McGonagall caught him with that Ravenclaw mudblood."

Tracey opened her mouth to protest against Draco's use of the word but Theodore kicked her under the table before she could say anything. She grit her teeth and glared at him.

"Why does that concern you, Malfoy?"

"Because I'm the prefect so I got in trouble for not keeping him in line," Draco muttered. "I mean really, it would be my luck to end up having to try and make an idiot like Blaise behave, wouldn't it?"

"Every school has a troublemaker, a rule breaker, a ladies man, a Sirius Black," Tracey replied. "He's ours."

"I hardly think it's accurate to be comparing Zabini to a man who killed thirteen people with a single curse," Draco said huffily.

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

"Why do you assume that, Davis?"

"Well you are related to him," Theodore said.

"Yes, about as related as I am to either of you," Draco huffed.

Tracey rolled her eyes. "Sirius Black is your mother's first cousin, you fool. Don't tell me you didn't know that?"

Draco's face had taken on the look that Theodore had long-since christened its 'ferret expression', and Theodore could barely refrain from laughing. Draco obviously couldn't decide whether he was more annoyed by the fact that he had just been insulted or by the fact that a Tracey, a half-blood, knew more about his family-tree than he did.

"Look, Nott, just promise me that you'll try and keep Zabini in line from now on. He actually listens to you for some bizarre reason."

Theodore raised an eyebrow. "Control Zabini? Really, Malfoy, I'd have more success trying to control the Dark Lord than trying to control Blaise."


	93. Delusional

XCIII. Delusional

"I love you, Theo."

Blaise was drunk again. He had stolen a ridiculous amount of wine from the kitchens that night and, having successfully imbibed three bottles of the stuff, was leaning on Theodore's shoulder with a stupid grin on his face.

"Yes, Zabini. Of course you do," Theodore replied with a sigh. Blaise looked up and saw two Theodores cringing away from him, then wondered briefly how there could possibly be two of Theodore. Had he used a duplication spell?

"So now there's two of you," Blaise slurred out. "One for Tracey and one for me."

"You persistent delusional idiot." Theodore looked like he had just plunged to the depths of despair. "This is why I don't drink. You always say such moronic things when you're drunk."

"But I do love you, Theo."

"Of course you do," Theodore sighed in resignation. "Of course you do."


	94. Quidditch

XCIV. Quidditch

"Why can't girls play Quidditch? It's such a stupid, anachronistic rule. I hate it!"

Theodore tried to block out Tracey's whining. She was ranting, complaining about the fact that she'd failed to get onto the Quidditch team yet again, and hadn't shut up for the past half an hour. She'd assumed she'd have a chance once Flint left, but unfortunately for her, she hadn't realised that Montague was just as much of a chauvinist as Flint had been.

"You can't play Quidditch," Blaise drawled from behind a dog-earned copy of witch weekly that he'd 'borrowed' from Pansy Parkinson, "Because girls suck at Quidditch."

"Does that mean you're bad at Quidditch as well?" Tracey shot back.

"I don't play Quidditch. It ruins my hair."

"You're such a girl!"

"Obviously more of a girl than you are, Tracey."

"I hate you, Zabini," she growled.

"Love you too."

Theodore shook his head, feeling for all the world like an old man watching over a pair of squabbling children.

"I never should have encouraged you to talk to each other, should I?" he muttered.

"Of course you should, Theo. Tracey's so much fun to tease," Blaise said, his inane grin growing wider by the second. Tracey looked like she was about to hex Blaise's hair off very soon.

"That, Zabini, is exactly my point," Theodore sighed.


	95. A strange question

XCV. A strange question

"Tracey, what do you think would happen if my mother married a muggle?"

Tracey looked at Blaise, more than a little perplexed.

"Why are you asking me this?"

Blaise shrugged. "Because you're the person I know who knows the most about muggles, obviously. So if my mum married a muggle and he died like all her other husbands have, what would happen?"

"Do you mean 'would they realise that she'd killed him'?" Tracey asked.

"Yeah, seeing as muggles aren't too advanced when it comes to potion making and stuff."

Tracey shook her head. "They're a lot more advanced than you'd assume."

"So the only reason my mother's stuck to marrying wizards is because magical murders are easier to get away with?" Blaise said at last. "I suppose that makes sense."

"You have a very morbid mind, Zabini."

"So would you if you had to live with my mother."


	96. Change of topic

XCVI. Change of topic

"I can't believe I got an O in our last Ancient Runes essay," Blaise said. He was feeling very pleased with himself – pleased that he'd just managed to prove to Professor Babbling that he really _was_ the genius he thought he was, and doubly pleased because he had just won a galleon off Theodore. It wasn't the money that mattered, it was the fact that he'd proved Theodore wrong for once.

"Will you change the topic, please?" Theodore groaned. "You're starting to sound as though someone's hexed you so you have to repeat yourself all the time."

"I have every right to be happy," Blaise replied sulkily. "I just proved that I'm a genius. Though that essay was mega-easy, don't you think?"

Theodore shot Blaise the darkest glare he thought he had ever seen in his life.

"What's up with you?" Blaise asked.

"I only got an E in that essay, Zabini. It was far from easy."

Blaise looked at him blankly. Theodore had got an E? Theodore? Theodore, who was brilliant at Ancient Runes? His Theodore?

"Seriously?"

"Yes," Theodore said tersely. "Now shut up and stop gloating before I kill you."

Suddenly changing the topic of conversation seemed like a very good idea indeed.


	97. Knowledge

XCVII. Knowledge

Tracey was trying her best to revise for the Astronomy test she had the next night, but unfortunately for her the diagrams just weren't going in. She couldn't remember a thing. No, she couldn't remember a thing and the last thing she needed was Blaise standing in front of her with a grin on his face, twittering away about nothing.

"I know something you don't know."

Blaise's singsong voice was starting to get on her nerves.

"I know something you don't know."

Maybe she could kill him to make him shut up and actually get away with it?

"I know something you don't know."

"Then just bloody tell me what it is!" Tracey yelled, unable to stand it any longer.

"I have the answers for tomorrow's Astronomy test," Blaise replied with a grin, dropping a roll of parchment on the desk in front of Tracey. She grinned.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I love you!"

Tracey had the answers to memorise, Blaise had shut up and all was well in the world of Slytherin again.


	98. Annoying

XCVIII. Annoying

Blaise was more than a little bit surprised when the vase came sailing towards his head. It was a lovely vase, dark green with lighter green snakes coiling around it, and it had just flown straight past his head, smashing into the wall behind him and falling to the floor in a thousand pieces.

He doubted even the best spellwork would be enough to fix that completely. It was a pity; it was such lovely vase. It was the same colour as Daphne's eyes, in fact, and its broken pieces were about as nice to gaze upon as the rage that was filling her eyes at the moment – and about as sharp. Beautiful but potentially deadly.

"Stupid, annoying jerk!" Daphne shrieked.

"I don't even know what I've done!" Blaise cried. "Could you at least give me the courtesy of explaining that before you start chucking your priceless family heirlooms at my head?"

"You said I was beautiful," she snarled out furiously.

It was so unexpected that Blaise almost laughed.

"Stop it!" she cried upon noticing the smirk on his face. "Just stop it. This is all just one big joke to you, isn't it? Well you can't go round playing with me like this. If you're going to tell me that I'm beautiful then please, just _mean _it." Her voice had dwindled away to a whisper by then.

"But I do mean it," Blaise replied just as softly.

The fact that Daphne had started crying was the most disturbing thing. Broken vases and shrieking and screaming he was used to, but emotional women – an emotional _Daphne_ was a different thing entirely.


	99. Flagpole

XCIX. Flagpole

Theodore couldn't quite understand how Blaise had just managed to hit himself in the head with a flagpole. Admittedly it was a very small flagpole, as the flag he had conjured to stick in the snow was small, but it still must have hurt.

He had known that going for a walk in the snow with Blaise would turn out badly. He had known that things would be even worse when Blaise had started putting together a snow mound with his hands like some filthy muggle, then conjured a bright green flag, sticking it into the snow and shouting, "I claim this land for Slytherin."

Then he had slipped, hit himself with the flag and landed in the pile of snow, which was why Blaise was currently sprawled on the ground with a stupid grin on his face.

"This snow's cold," Blaise said at last.

Theodore couldn't help but sigh. Blaise really was the biggest idiot he had ever met in his life.


	100. Defiant

C. Defiant

Theodore was beginning to wonder if there was something very wrong with Blaise Zabini. The boy had somehow managed to convince him that trying to sneak into the Ravenclaw common room would be a good idea, which was why they were both in the dormitory now, their ears ringing after having been subjected to rants first from an irate Ravenclaw prefect and then from their head of house.

Why had Zabini ever thought that sneaking into Ravenclaw Tower would be a good idea – and more importantly, why had Theodore ever been so stupid as to go along with it? The boy was more charismatic than he appeared at first, Theodore supposed.

Said charismatic boy was lying on his bed, a smirk on his face that could have rivalled Draco Malfoy at his most smug: well, so long as one discounted the fact that one didn't want to rip the smirk straight off Zabini's face. He was somewhat less infuriating than Malfoy, but then again that was probably because Theodore had only known Zabini for a few months, whereas he had known Malfoy for far longer than he cared to remember.

"We are defiantly doing that again," Zabini said at last.

"You do realise that that sentence doesn't make any sense, don't you?"

"It makes perfect sense," Zabini shot back. "We're going to do that again in order to be defiant."

"You can if you really want to. Personally I'd rather not risk my life by acting as thoughtless as a Gryffindor, Zabini."

"Blaise," Zabini replied. "Call me Blaise. I hate being called by my surname; it's so _distant_, Theo."

"Nott."

"Ok, Theo."

Theodore tried to resist the urge to sigh. However was he going to survive seven years sleeping in the same room as the smirky Draco Malfoy and the borderline-Gryffindor that was Blaise Zabini?


End file.
